Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

Private Bills [Lords] (Standing Orders not previously inquired into complied with),—Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That in the case of the following Bill, originating in the Lords, and referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders not previously inquired into, which are applicable thereto, have been complied with, namely:—

Ionian Bank Bill [Lords].

Ordered, That the Bill be read a Second time.

Cambridge University and Town Waterworks Bill,

Read the Third time, and passed.

Forth Conservancy Order Confirmation Bill [Lords],

Read the Third time, and passed, with Amendments.

Oral Answers to Questions — NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.

ADMINISTRATION EXPENSES.

Lieut.-Colonel POWNALL: 1.
asked the Minister of Pensions what is the total spent by his Ministry on central administration and local committees in his Estimates for 1921–22; and what proportion such administrative expenses bear to the total sums disbursed in pensions?

The MINISTER of PENSIONS (Mr. Macpherson): In the Ministry's Estimates for the year 1921–22, provision is made for the sum of £4,385,000 for cost of administration: The sum is made up as follows:—



£


Headquarters and Regional Establishments (other than medical)
3,052,000


Local Committees
1,334,000


The total sum is approximately four per cent, of the amount disbursed in pensions, allowances and treatment.

HEAET DISEASE (GRANTS).

Mr. PAPER: asked the Minister of Pensions if the sum of £46,000 has been saved in pensions and grants to discharged soldiers suffering from heart disease; and what is the nature of the medical discovery by means of which this saving was effected?

Mr. MACPHERSON: I have no knowledge of the figure referred to in the first part of the question. A sum of nearly £4,000,000 a year is at present being paid to men who are pensioned for heart disease. Every effort is being made by the establishment of Cardiological Clinics with improved methods of diagnosis and treatment, to restore the health of men who suffer from this complaint.

Mr. RAPER: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this question is based on a statement made in the Press by the hon. Member for Lanark?

Mr. MACPHERSON: I am not aware of that, but if the hon. Member will give me particulars, I shall be happy to look into the matter.

Oral Answers to Questions — IRELAND.

MURDERS AND OUTRAGES.

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: 4.
asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether the inquiries with a view to identifying the person who shot Mrs. Ryan at her home at Cullen on 23rd December have been completed; whether the two constables arrested for the murder of Mr. J. Whelan at Ballyroan, Abbeyleix, on 27th December, have been tried; and whether the constable arrested
for the murder of Mr. Patrick Thompson, of Lisnadar, county Westmeath, at Delvin on 6th October, has been tried?

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL for IRELAND (Mr. Denis Henry): The answer to the first and second parts of the question is in the negative. In regard to the third part, the constable charged with the murder of Mr. Patrick Thompson was tried by court-martial on the 24th ultimo, and acquitted.

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Why has the constable arrested for the murder of Mr. Whelan on 27th December not been tried yet?

Mr. HENRY: There has not been time to procure evidence. Every effort is being made to do so.

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Are inquiries as to who shot Mrs. Ryan still proceeding, and when will the Government be able to proceed in the matter?

Mr. HENRY: Yes; inquiries are still proceeding, but the Government cannot fix a date.

Mr. GALBRAITH: 19.
asked the Chief Secretary whether he can now state the results of the courts of inquiry into the deaths of J. Hynan at Emly on 21st December, S. O'Brien at Charleville on 1st March, and Thomas Mullen at Clonberne on 2nd March; and whether any arrests have been made?

Mr. HENRY: The finding of the court of inquiry in the case of John Hynan was that he was shot by a constable of the Royal Irish Constabulary, who fired in self-defence. The finding in the case of John O'Brien was one of wilful murder by persons unknown. No arrests have yet been made. The finding in the case of Thomas Mullen was that he was shot while attempting to escape.

Mr. MacVEAGH: 22.
asked the Chief Secretary whether he is aware that on 13th February two clergymen in Ballybay, co. Monaghan, the Reverend T. Connolly and the Reverend P. Murphy, were fired at from behind a hedge, three shots being discharged; whether a party of police, who happened to be passing in a motor, rushed behind the hedge and found concealed there a Black and Tan policeman named Cromwell and two civilians named
Clark; whether two revolvers were found at the spot where they were arrested; whether Cromwell and the two Clarks were released immediately after being brought to barracks, and, if so, by whose order; whether it is usual to place under open arrest a policeman charged with attempting to murder; whether he has since been court-martialled, and, if so, with what result; and why proceedings against the Clarks were abandoned?

Mr. HENRY: A very full and searching official inquiry which was held into this matter conclusively showed that the shots fired by the constable were not aimed at or in the direction of the priests, but were fired in the air with the intention of testing the revolver which the constable had recently had repaired. He was detained in custody pending the result of the inquiry and was then released on the ground that there was no evidence on which a criminal charge could be sustained. The two civilians who were in his company at the time of the accident and were both unarmed were released on the same ground.

Mr. LYNN: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman say how many Protestants have been murdered in Monaghan?

Mr. MacVEAGH: If they were testing revolvers, how is it explained that they were crouching behind a hedge in the operation?

Mr. HENRY: They were not crouching behind a hedge.

Mr. MacVEAGH: Were they not captured red-handed by the police, who arrived in a motor-car?

Mr. HENRY: No. I have answered that.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Are not revolvers tested before they are issued? Does the right hon. Gentleman not think that the story is altogether incredible?

Mr. MacVEAGH: Is the court-martial concluded, and, if so, what is the result?

Mr. HENRY: No. I have stated that when the matter was investigated they were released on the ground that there was no evidence on which a criminal charge could be sustained.

Mr. MacVEAGH: Is it not a fact that these men were released within, an hour of their arrest, and, if so, by whose authority?

Mr. HENRY: I have already dealt with that point.

Mr. MacVEAGH: 41.
asked the Prime Minister whether he has received from Mrs. Maire O'Donovan, widow of the mayor of Limerick, a letter with reference to the murder of her husband by Crown forces, in which she contradicts statements made by the Prime Minister, and asks him to make reparation for the injury he has done by these statements; whether he has personally investigated the facts set out by Mrs. O'Donovan, and especially the declaration by Mrs. O'Callaghan, widow of Alderman O'Callaghan, who was murdered in his own house on the same evening; and whether, if he still doubts the guilt of the Crown forces, he will set up the independent inquiry demanded by both Mrs. O'Donovan and Mrs. O'Callaghan?

The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Lloyd George): Yes, Sir. I have received the letter referred to. A public inquiry into this murder has been held, and the relatives of the deceased, including Mrs. O'Callaghan, were invited to attend, and to assist in discovering the murderers, but they refused to do so. If Mrs. O'Callaghan is, as she states, in possession of important evidence, it is open to her, notwithstanding her previous refusal to assist in discovering the murderers of her husband, to forward it to my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary, who, I can assure her, is no less eager than she to discover the persons guilty of this wicked crime, or, if she prefers that the evidence should be investigated in public, I will request the Commander-in-Chief in Ireland to reassemble the Court. In view of the fact, however, which I think is well known to every Member of this House, that no jury in the South of Ireland can be trusted in present circumstances to bring in an impartial verdict, I am not prepared to assent to Mrs. O'Callaghan's request, and withdraw the Order made under R.O.I.E. 81, prohibiting coroner's inquests in the city of Limerick.

Mr. MacVEAGH: Does the right hon. Gentleman think an inquiry by Crown
forces into charges of murder brought against the Crown forces themselves is an impartial method of investigation?

The PRIME MINISTER: I have no doubt at all that it would be a most impartial investigation. These courts are very carefully chosen, and as a rule there is a legal representative present. It is our sincere desire to ascertain who committed this murder. There is a conflict of views. I know the hon. Gentleman is of opinion that it was organised by the Crown forces. It is my information—and I have made some inquiries into the subject—that these unfortunate men were regarded as being far too moderate.

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: "Oh!"

The PRIME MINISTER: I am giving the information which I have, and it is that they were regarded as being too moderate, as declining to carry out the orders of the Irish Republican army, and that that is the reason why they were murdered. There is a conflict of view. We are quite willing that there should be the most complete inquiry into this subject, and that it should be in public.

Mr. MacVEAGH: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his suggestion that these two men were murdered by Sinn Feiners is bitterly repudiated and resented by the widows of these two men, and that they have asked him, as a man of honour, to withdraw that suggestion; and, having regard to the attitude taken by the widows of the murdered men, I ask him whether, in justice to the memory of these men, he will withdraw the suggestion?

The PRIME MINISTER: I would not like to say anything to hurt the feelings of widowed women—not a word—but I know the difficulties under which they exist at the present moment, and it is not very easy for them to express an opinion.

Mr. MacVEAGH: That is a scandalous statement—absolutely scandalous.

The PRIME MINISTER: I repeat the statement, not for the sake of the hon. Gentleman, but of the people in Ireland—that if there be a desire to have an independent public inquiry, I shall do everything to facilitate it, and I will see that a Court is established, as long as they are prepared to give such evidence before that Court as they have got.

Mr. O'CONNOR: I think the right hon. Gentleman's offer of an independent public inquiry is a very fair one, but will he see that the inquiry will be in the real sense of the word independent, by having a tribunal which by no means could be regarded as interested in the dispute between the parties? There is a conflict of evidence. I have a strong feeling one way, and the right hon. Gentleman may have opinions the other way, and the relatives of these murdered people have a strong opinion which is rather against the impression suggested by the right hon. Gentleman. Is not the fair way in which to test the evidence to have a really judicial tribunal? There is no necessity for a jury. A County Court Judge [HON. MEMBERS: "Speech!"] The Prime Minister and myself both want to arrive at an agreement in this matter, and I want to suggest a better way of doing it—

Mr. SPEAKER: There is only half an hour left for questions.

DISTURBANCES, CLIFDEN.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 5.
asked the Chief Secretary whether, following the assassination of two police-constables at Clifden, in Connemara, on 16th March last, nine houses, including the house of the father of ex-Sergeant-major M'Donnell, were burnt by the Crown forces; whether ex-Sergeant-major M'Donnell was shot while trying to extinguish the flames in his father's house; whether this was an official or unofficial reprisal; and whether Connemara is in the martial-law area?

Mr. HENRY: The facts of the case are as follow. At 10 p.m. on 16th March two policemen, Constable Reynolds and Constable Sweeney, on patrol with others at Clifden were shot down in cold blood at point-blank range by a party of civilians, some of whom were masked. Reynolds, who had been living with his wife and young family in Clifden for some years and bore an excellent character, was instantly killed. Sweeney, who was also an Irishman and had served with distinction in the Irish Guards, was severely wounded in three places and did not survive 48 hours. News of this abominable outrage was conveyed to Galway 50 miles away by wireless, the telegraph wires having been cut. A party of Royal Irish Constabulary under three experienced
officers was at once despatched by special train to the scene of the outrage in the hope of apprehending the murderers. This party, which included men who knew the locality well, arrived in Clifden between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. on the morning of the 17th. As they approached certain houses which they intended to search fire was immediately opened from the houses on them. In the course of the encounter which ensued, twelve houses were burned and four others damaged. A man named John McDonnell, who escaped from one of the houses, was shot dead after running some distance. Another man named Peter Clancy, pensioner from the Royal Irish Constabulary, was wounded by a stray bullet. The statement that McDonnell was shot while endeavouring to extinguish the flames is untrue. As will be clear from what I have said this was not a case of reprisal. The district is not in the martial-law area.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the inhabitants of Clifden, who are not Sinn Feiners, deny the statement that any fire was opened, and state further that Clancy the ex-constable was put up against a wall, and shot?

Mr. HENRY: No one is so likely to know whether fire is opened or not as the men who sustain it.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is
it not the usual excuse for acts of arson by Crown forces that they are fired on, and will the right hon. Gentleman have inquiries made into this case, as there seems to be a conflict of evidence?

Mr. LYNN: Is it not a fact that any ex-soldier who is in the South of Ireland goes about with his life in his hands, owing to Sinn Fein?

Mr. MacVEAGH: If these houses were not burnt as reprisals, how does it happen that they were burnt accidentally?

Mr. HENRY: I have already dealt with that in my answer. You cannot have an encounter of that kind without something of this sort.

Mr. MacVEAGH: Does the right hon. Gentleman suggest that the burning of these houses was an accidental result of the encounter?

Mr. HENRY: I suggest that it was a result of the encounter that arose in consequence of the firing.

Mr. MacVEAGH: Will the right hon. Gentleman explain to the House how the firing of rifles could possibly set nine houses on fire?

Major MALONE: 59.
asked the Chief Secretary whether he can give any information with regard to the recent shooting and burning of houses in Clifden, county Galway, by forces of the Crown; whether the Reverend Canon M'Alpine, the parish priest, was insulted and threatened to be, shot by one of the party in the presence of a member of the Royal Irish Constabulary; and if any arrest has been made?

Mr. HENRY: As regards the first part of the question, I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the reply I gave to a similar question asked by the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull to-day (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy). As regards the latter part of the question, I am informed that, although an altercation took place between certain members of the party and the reverend gentleman, it is not true that his life was threatened or that he has been, or is now, in any personal danger.

Major MALONE: Is not the reverend gentleman prepared to make a statement that he was threatened with being shot if he did not clear out?

Mr. HENRY: I have given the hon. Gentleman all the information in my possession. There are two sides to every quarrel.

Major MALONE: I am afraid, having heard the answer of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, that his information is entirely at fault.

Mr. MacVEAGH: That is nothing new.

MILITARY COURTS (MURDER CASES).

Major M. WOOD: 12.
asked the Chief Secretary whether, if further evidence is produced in any case of death in which a military court of inquiry, sitting in lieu of a coroner's inquest, has returned a verdict of murder by some person or persons unknown, or of justifiable homicide
in cases where attempting to escape or resisting arrest is alleged, he will give orders for the reopening of the inquiry?

Mr. HENRY: The General Officer Commanding-in-Chief has power to order a court of inquiry in lieu of inquest to reassemble in any case where he thinks this necessary, and where any evidence which might lead to the conviction of a murderer is forthcoming subsequent to the closing of a court of inquiry the case would always be further considered with a view to bringing the suspected person to trial.

Major WOOD: Have these powers been exercised?

Mr. HENRY: Not so far as I am aware, for the reason that the evidence has not been brought before the authorities.

AUXILIARY CADETS (LOOTING CHARGES).

Major M. WOOD: 13.
asked the Chief Secretary whether the 26 cadets who were suspended by General Crozier in connection with the Trim looting are receiving full pay and allowances while awaiting trial; whether they are doing duty; if not, how long have they been receiving pay without doing duty; and whether, either under the Army Act or under the Regulations of the Royal Irish Constabulary, they are in such circumstances entitled to pay?

Mr. HENRY: I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the replies given by my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the question asked by the hon. Member for the Falls Division on the 9th ultimo and to a question by the hon. and gallant Member for the Central Hull Division on the 23rd ultimo.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Does that mean that the 26 cadets have not yet been brought to trial?

Mr. HENRY: Yes, because there is no evidence against them.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Have the six cadets who were put back for a field general court-martial because there was evidence against them been brought to trial?

Mr. HENRY: Their trial is coming on very shortly. In that case there is evidence, and they are being tried. In the
case of the other cadets there has been no primâ facie case against them up to the present.

Major WOOD: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, under the Army Act, if a man is accused his pay is suspended until he is either convicted or acquitted, and why is not that done in this case?

Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: Is it not the fact that these men are not under the Army Act, do not receive Army rations, and feed themselves out of their pay, and if their pay was suspended they would be in a state of starvation?

Mr. MacVEAGH: They feed themselves out of loot.

BISHOP FOGARTY'S HOUSE (RAID).

Mr. HAYDAY: 16.
asked the Chief Secretary whether he received a report of the raid made upon the house of Bishop Fogarty; whether the report disclosed conduct of the Crown forces which merited punishment; and whether he has taken disciplinary action in the matter?

Mr. HENRY: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative, and to the second part in the negative. The remainder of the question therefore does not arise. I would, however, refer the hon. Member to a reply which will be given by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to a question by the hon. Member for the Welling-borough Division (Mr. W. R. Smith) this afternoon.

DEATH, ABBEYFEALE.

Mr. GALBRAITH: 18.
asked the Chief Secretary whether the member of the Auxiliary Division, Royal Irish Constabulary, responsible for the death of Mrs. Ryan, of Abbeyfeale, has yet been identified; and what further action has been taken?

Mr. HENRY: Inquiries with a view to identifying the member of the Auxiliary Division by whom the shot which caused Mrs. Ryan's death was fired are still proceeding.

"IRISH BULLETIN."

Mr. CAIRNS: 20.
asked the Chief Secretary whether his attention has been drawn to statements in the Press that
recent issues of the "Irish Bulletin" are forged; whether he is aware that these documents could have been distributed only by persons in possession of the secret list of names and addresses to which the "Irish Bulletin" was regularly sent; and whether this list was amongst the documents seized by the Crown forces on the occasion of the raid on the headquarters of the Republican Propaganda Department?

Major BARNES: 51.
asked the Chief Secretary whether he can state if, during the recent raid on the offices of the "Irish Bulletin," the Crown forces took away the list of journalists and politicians to whom that publication was being regularly sent; whether he is aware that since the seizure of that list the persons whose names appear on it have been receiving forgeries of that publication; whether the forged issues are being pre pared and posted in any Government Department in Dublin; and whether any of the money recently voted by this House for propaganda is being utilised in that work?

Mr. HENRY: My right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary has no knowledge whatever of the authorship or source of issue of the publication which has excited so much interest and speculation, and he is in no better position than other hon. Members to express an opinion as to whether it is what it purports to be, a genuine Irish bulletin. Judging, however, from internal evidence of style and subject matter, and bearing in mind the date of its issue, he is inclined to accept what appears to be the general conclusion in regard to its authenticity. The suggestion that the Irish Government is in any way responsible for the document or that a single penny of the Irish Vote has been expended on its production is, of course, untrue. He has satisfied himself as to that.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: How does the right hon. Gentleman think it possible for these forged "Bulletins" to come to private persons who have been receiving the genuine bulletins in the past unless they came from the Crown forces who seized the list of addresses, and will the right hon. Gentleman make further inquiry as to how this can be published and circulated without any expenditure of public money?

Mr. HENRY: A great many things are circulated without any expenditure of public money.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that forged copies are coming out, each invariably bearing a twopenny stamp, to the list of, I believe, about 500 people who received the old "Bulletins," and how can that be done without an expenditure of public money?

Mr. HENRY: It may be that the money is expended by benevolent politicians.

Major BARNES: Will the Attorney-General assure the House that the same efforts will be made to trace the forged "Bulletins," and stop their circulation, as were made to stop the genuine "Bulletins"?

Mr. HENRY: Certainly.

Mr. MacVEAGH: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that the Government have admitted having forged newspapers in imitation of the "Pravda" for circulation in Russia? Is this a case of the Irish Office following the example of the Home Office?

Mr. HENRY: I do not admit anything of the kind.

Mr. LYNN: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that the "Irish Bulletin" is such a stupid organ that it is not worth circulating?

CASUALTIES (CEOWN FORCES AND CIVILIANS).

Mr. MOSLEY: 21.
asked the Chief Secretary the number of members of the forces of the Crown in Ireland who have been arrested for offences against the criminal law since the 1st January last; how many have been brought to trial; what the results of the trials have been; how many remain in custody awaiting trial; the number of members of the forces of the Crown who have been killed and wounded respectively, and the number of civilians, men, women, and children, who have been killed and wounded in Ireland since 1st January last; whether the report of the military court of inquiry into the murders of Alderman Clancy and Councillor O'Callaghan, of Limerick, on the 7th March last, has yet been received; and, if so, what is the nature of the report?

Mr. HENRY: A return giving the particulars asked for in the first and second part of the question is in course of preparation, and if the hon. Member will kindly repeat the question on Thursday of next week, I hope then to be able to furnish him with the desired information. In regard to the last part of the question, I would refer him to a reply I gave to the hon. Member for the Silvertown Division on the 24th ultimo.

POLICE RAIDS.

Mr. MacVEAGH: 23.
asked the Chief Secretary whether he is aware that on 9th January a party of auxiliary police from Beggar's Bush barracks, and armed with revolvers, raided the Pembroke fire brigade station at Ballsbridge, Dublin, and subsequently commandeered a motor car at a neighbouring garage; whether these policemen were under the influence of drink and threatened the lives of the firemen on duty; whether the lives of the firemen were again threatened when they were identifying the raiders; whether two of the auxiliaries again visited the fire station on 15th January, demanded the production of the men who had reported the previous raid and presented a revolver at the head of the superintendent; whether the same party held up at the same time two men of the Dublin Metro politan Police and stole their arms and ammunition, whether these raiders were surprised and captured by their own commanding officer and other officers; and what further action has been taken?

Mr. HENRY: I have called for a full report with regard to these allegations. If the hon. Member will kindly repeat the question—of which I only received notice yesterday—on Thursday of next week I hope then to be in a position to furnish him with a reply.

AUXILIARY POLICE (MAJOR E. BRUCE).

Major BARNES: 24.
asked the Chief Secretary whether he is aware that Major Ewen Bruce, of the auxiliary police, who was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment without hard labour for stealing £75 from a creamery, is no longer in Waterford gaol; and whether he is still in custody and, if so, where?

Mr. HENRY: This prisoner was removed on the 11th February, 1921, from Waterford prison to Mountjoy prison, where he is now.

MARTIAL LAW AREAS.

Captain Viscount CURZON: 37.
asked the Prime Minister whether he will consider the withdrawal of all Crown forces and services from the martial law areas in Ireland and any loyalists who may wish to leave, and the establishment of a modified form of blockade, to be intensified as requisite, in order to save life to both sides and to secure an economy of force?

The PRIME MINISTER: I trust it will not be necessary to contemplate any such action as is indicated in my Noble Friend's question.

PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS (PROTECTION).

Viscount CURZON: 39.
asked the Prime Minister whether any guarantee of safety, and, if so, what, will be given to voters for a free exercise of their vote in the martial law and other areas in Ireland for the election of the Irish Parliament, both Sinn Fein and loyalist?

The PRIME MINISTER: I cannot say more than that every possible step will be taken to secure the free and unfettered exercise of the franchise by all sections of the electorate during the forthcoming elections.

Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCK: Does that mean that the right hon. Gentleman will withdraw the auxiliary police before the election takes place?

The PRIME MINISTER: Quite the reverse.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that no meetings of more than eight persons are allowed in the South and West of Ireland at present? How can an election possibly be held in the circumstances?

The PRIME MINISTER: Quite frankly, that is not the real danger in the South of Ireland. The danger is that there is such intimidation that there would be no freedom for people to express opinions.

Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCK: By whom?

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Press is censored? How can there be an election in the circumstances? It is a farce.

The PRIME MINISTER: The hon. and gallant Member has only to think of the number of murders that have taken place in the course of the last few days of civilians who dared to express an opinion contrary to that of Sinn Fein.

Mr. MacVEAGH: How many murders have there been by Crown forces?

Mr. LYNN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there was a great deal of intimidation at the local elections in Ireland last year by the Sinn Feiners?

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: What about Belfast?

MILITARY INQUIRIES.

Mr. LAWSON: 52.
asked the Chief Secretary whether the recent deaths of six men at Clogheen, near Cork, has been the subject of a military inquiry; if so, what were the conclusions reached by the court; and whether his attention has been drawn to reports current in the district that these men were murdered and mutilated in a brutal fashion?

Mr. HENRY: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. The court found that the deceased were killed instantaneously by gunshot wounds inflicted by forces of the Crown in the execution of their duty. My attention has not been drawn to any reports such as those suggested in the question, but I take this opportunity of stating that if any such reports have been current they are false, and are disproved by the evidence given at the inquiry, which included evidence from a doctor and from relatives of the deceased who saw the bodies.

Mr. CAIRNS: 55.
asked the Chief Secretary whether he is aware that at the military inquiry into the death of Christopher Reynolds, of Rathfarnham, alleged to have been murdered by Crown forces, the representatives of the Press have been excluded by written military orders; and whether, in view of his repeated assurances to this House that military inquiries in lieu of inquests are open to the Press and to the public, why they are excluded in this and in other cases?

Mr. HENRY: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave to a private notice question by the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool
(Mr. O'Connor) yesterday. I would add, however, that if in the opinion of the Presiding Officer the admission of members of the public during any part of the proceedings of a Court of Inquiry would be likely to endanger the lives of witnesses, it would be within his discretion, and it would be his duty to direct that the public should be excluded while the witnesses in question were being heard.

Mr. O'CONNOR: Does the exclusion of the public mean the exclusion of the Press?

Mr. HENRY: That is also within the discretion of the President if he consider that lives are endangered.

Mr. O'CONNOR: Is not that really a distinct withdrawal of the pledge given yesterday by the right hon. and learned Gentleman that the inquiry should be public?

Mr. HENRY: I was dealing in that particular case with the inquiry as regards Christopher Reynolds, when I gave that pledge, but I am now dealing with the general question of the powers of the President of a court-martial.

Mr. MacVEAGH: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that the Chief Secretary has on several occasions told this House that the Press are always admitted to these inquiries?

Mr. HENRY: My recollection is that it is so, but it is quite within the discretion of the President, for the very grave reasons stated in my answer, to exclude the Press.

ARMS (REBEL FORCES).

Sir W. WHITLA: 57.
asked the Chief Secretary the number of arms and ammunition captured from, or surrendered by, rebel forces in Ireland since the 1st January, 1921?

Mr. HENRY: If the hon. Member will kindly repeat the question on Thursday of next week, I hope then to be able to furnish him with these particulars.

HOSTAGES.

Major M. WOOD: 60.
asked the Chief Secretary how many men have been carried as hostages on military or police lorries; how long they were detained; how many casualties have occurred among these men; and whether he has
any report as to the circumstances under which the casualties, if any, took place?

Mr. HENRY: I am unable to furnish the hon. and gallant Member with information as to the number of persons who have been carried as hostages, or as to the length of time for which they have been detained. There have been no casualties to hostages carried on military lorries, and there has been only one casualty, a case of wounding, to hostages on police lorries. An official inquiry is being held into the circumstances in which this casualty occurred.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is it the official policy to carry civilians as hostages in these lorries, and is not that against all the laws of war?

Mr. HENRY: That is a matter for the military authorities in the martial law area.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is this the official policy? Has this the approval of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's Department?

Major WOOD: Is there any record kept of the number of hostages carried in lorries, and, if not, does not the right hon. and learned Gentleman think there ought to be a record, or is any police officer entitled to take any Sinn Feiner or anyone and put him on a lorry whenever he likes?

Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCK: Will the Government abandon a policy which is both useless and barbarous?

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: It is scandalous—like the Germans.

DEATH, ENNIS.

Mr. ROBINSON GRAHAM: 61.
asked the Chief Secretary the circumstances under which Patrick Consellan was killed near Ennis; and whether the military evidence at the military court of inquiry showed that fire was opened on unarmed men leaving a church and that Consellan was killed during the firing?

Mr. HENRY: The findings of the military court of inquiry held in lieu of inquest was that this man met his death on the 27th February, 1921, as the result of a gunshot wound caused by a shot which was fired by a soldier in the execution of his duty. The evidence given at the inquiry was to the effect that Consellan
and a number of other men who were collected outside the church at Lissacasly on the morning of the above date were challenged by a party of military and called upon to halt. Instead of complying with this order they ran away, and the troops thereupon fired, with the result that Consellan was mortally wounded.

Mr. O'CONNOR: Does the fact of men running away unarmed, in terror or defiance, justify soldiers firing upon them and killing them?

Mr. HENRY: The experience of the military has been that when groups of men are gathered together it invariably ends in the murder of either a policeman or a military man.

Mr. MacVEAGH: Is the Attorney-General aware that none of the men fired upon were armed and no arms were found there at all?

Mr. HENRY: I must have notice of that.

NOTICE (TULLAMORE).

Mr. R. GRAHAM: 62.
asked the Chief Secretary who is responsible for the notice posted up in Tullamore last Monday stating that anyone seen loitering or standing at corners would be liable to be shot at sight, and that the same would apply to anyone seen with his hands in his pockets or acting in a suspicious manner; and whether any officer approved especially of the last sentence in the notice referred to?

Mr. HENRY: My right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary is inquiring into this matter. If the hon. Member will repeat the question one day next week he hopes then to be in a position to furnish him with a reply.

PRISONERS.

Mr. JOHN: 63.
asked the Chief Secretary the total number of uncharged and untried prisoners now in custody in Ireland, giving the number in each internment camp and prison?

Mr. HENRY: I only received notice of this question yesterday. If the hon. Member will kindly put it down again for this day week I shall be glad to supply the figures.

POLICE FORCES.

Mr. JOHN: 64.
asked the Chief Secretary the total number of police and auxiliaries in Ireland, and approximately the monthly cost of the force?

Mr. HENRY: The total strength of the police forces in Ireland, including the Auxiliary Division, is 18,330 and the total monthly cost (approximately) is £621,200.

Mr. LYNN: Does not the right hon. Member think that the number of these forces should be largely increased, in view of the number of murders that are taking place?

Mr. HENRY: That matter will be considered by the responsible authorities.

Lord ROBERT CECIL: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that the questions on the Paper show the complete and disastrous failure of the policy of the Government in Ireland?

Mr. LYNN: Before the right hon. Gentleman replies, may I ask if it is not the fact that the policy the Government are pursuing was in reality suggested by the Noble Lord the Member for Hitchin some months ago?

Mr. LYLE: Would not a considerable reduction be made to our forces in Ireland if the rebels there did not get the support they are getting from hon. Members above the Gangway?

PRISONERS (WATERFORD).

Mr. MacVEAGH: (by Private Notice) asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that four political prisoners are being detained in one cell in Waterford Military Barracks and have been left without food for several days, and what action he proposes to take?

Mr. HENRY: I regret that it has been impossible for me to complete my inquiry into the allegations in this question of which I only received notice this morning. If the hon. Member will put it down again I hope then to be in a position to reply.

MATERNITY (WASHINGTON CONVENTION).

Mr. CLYNES: 42.
asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the importance of the Washington Convention on Maternity, and also of the opinion that the draft convention of the Washington
Conference must be submitted to Parliament, an opportunity will be given at an early date to discuss the Government's policy on the maternity convention, and also the Ministerial declaration that it is for the Government to decide whether any particular convention shall be sub mitted to Parliament?

The PRIME MINISTER: In view of the great pressure of Parliamentary business, I regret that I cannot at the present time make any definite arrangements for such a discussion, and I must remind my right hon. Friend that it formed the subject of a discussion on the 22nd March.

Mr. CLYNES: If the Prime Minister cannot at present give an assurance for an early date, can he assure us that if things improve in the next week or two he will reconsider it?

The PRIME MINISTER: We will consider it afresh, yes.

Lord R. CECIL: Will the right hon. Gentleman in reconsideration bear in mind the fact that there was some hope held out that there would be a full discussion. I do not put it as high as a pledge?

The PRIME MINISTER: If my Noble Friend will look at those pledges he will find they were pledges given before the discussion in March.

Oral Answers to Questions — LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

SECRETARIAT.

Major C. LOWTHER: 25.
asked the Prime Minister what are the duties and hours of work of the 363 employés of the League of Nations; what proportion of their emoluments is paid as frais de représentation and whether such proportion is free of tax?

The PRIME MINISTER: As the answer to this question is rather long, I propose, with the permission of the hon. and gallant Member, to circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

The following is the answer:—

The figures given as to the number of persons employed on the Secretariat of the League of Nations at Geneva include experts on legal, political, economic, financial, and other matters, interpreters
and translators, secretaries, stenographers, duplicators, messengers, etc., also house staff of caretakers, cleaners, firemen, etc. These constitute the Secretaries and staff provided for by Article VI. of the Covenant.

Their duties are to perform the secretarial work necessitated by the engagements laid down in Articles 1 to 26 of the Covenant, which have been subscribed to by 46 States.

The office hours of the clerical staff are from 9 a.m. to 5.30 p.m., with 1½ hours for lunch. House staff have an eight-hour day or its equivalent, in accordance with the Swiss law.

The Secretary-General and three undersecretaries-general are the only persons paid frais de représentation, which, in the case of the Secretary-General, amount to 60 per cent., and in that of the Deputy-Secretary-General to 40 per cent., and of the other two under-secretaries-general to 25 per cent. of their total emoluments. These sums are not subject to tax.

Major LOWTHER: 26.
asked the Prime Minister whether, in addition to the salary and allowance of 200,000 gold francs paid annually to Sir Eric Drummond, the Secretary-General of the League of Nations, this gentleman has yet been provided with a house in Geneva; if so, at what cost; whether in addition to salary and allowances, he receives travelling expenses; and whether any portion of the sum paid to him is free of tax?

The PRIME MINISTER: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative; the second does not, therefore, arise. The answer to the third and fourth parts of the question is in the affirmative.

Major LOWTHER: 27.
asked the Prime Minister whether the official of the Treasury appointed to serve on the League of Nations' Committee to consider the organisations, numbers, salaries, and allowances of the permanent staff of the Secretariat of the League of Nations is to receive a special salary and allowances for that work; and, if so, at what rate and by whom are they to be paid?

The PRIME MINISTER: The representative of the British Treasury, in common with the other members of the Committee, will receive from the League
his travelling expenses to and from Geneva, and an allowance of 70 gold francs a day while actually engaged on the work of the Committee, but no special salary.

Major LOWTHER: By whom is this paid? Is it part of the general expenses of the League?

The PRIME MINISTER: I am afraid I have not the information. I will let my hon. and gallant Friend know later.

MANDATES

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: 48.
asked the Lord Privy Seal when the mandate for East Africa will actually be laid upon the Table?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN (Leader of the House): Before the mandate is laid, it will be necessary to communicate with the French Government, but every effort will be made to expedite the matter.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Home Secretary stated on the 7th March that this mandate would be laid in a few days?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I was not aware that my right hon. Friend said within a few days, but I am quite ready to accept it from my hon. Friend. We will do our best to expedite the matter.

Lord R. CECIL: Will my right hon. Friend explain why it is necessary, in the case of a mandate which will only be executed by the British Government, to obtain the consent of anybody at all to lay it on the Table of this House, since the whole purpose of laying it on the Table of this House is to ascertain whether this House is ready to assume the responsibility which it is proposed to impose upon it by the terms of the mandate?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: As my Noble Friend knows, these mandates have been a matter of discussion. I am not prepared, without notice, to give the particular reasons which render it necessary. They must arise out of the negotiations.

Lord R. CECIL: In making these inquiries, will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that this is not a case of an agreement between this country and
another country, but the case of a suggestion by this country as to the terms on which it will be prepared to accept the Mandate?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I do not wholly accept my Noble Friend's description. The terms of these Mandates have been a matter of negotiation between the principal Allied Powers, but if my Noble Friend wishes an answer to a specific question, which I am not able to give him to-day, if he will put it on the Paper, I will do my best to get an answer from the Foreign Office.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: 49.
asked the Lord Privy Seal when the Mandate for Mesopotamia will be submitted to Parliament for its definite approval, and in what manner he proposes that this shall be done?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I will consult my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies as soon as he returns as to the manner and time at which the discussion promised by my predecessor, on the 23rd February, can best be afforded.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Has the right hon. Gentleman noticed the statement of the Secretary of the League of Nations in the "Times" which blows the great theory of Mandates to smithereens, and whether, under those circumstances, he will consider, as appears to be possible, with the consent of the League of Nations, the submission of the Mandate to us before it is submitted to them for final consideration?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Certainly I have noticed the statement of the Secretary of the League of Nations. I do not myself see anything inconsistent in that statement with the various statements made in this House by my predecessor. I cannot go further until I have been able to consult my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Churchill).

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Will the right hon. Gentleman consult the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, who made a statement in the House of Lords diametrically opposed to that of the Secretary of the League of Nations?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I will certainly consult my Noble Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: May I put down a question in a week's time?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: indicated assent.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: 77.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether that section of the ex-German Cameroons for which Great Britain has been granted a mandate is to be administered separately or as part of Nigeria; and whether any administrative deficit in respect to this mandated territory will be defrayed by Great Britain or by Nigeria?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Mr. Amery): It is proposed that the British sphere of the Cameroons should be administered as a part of Nigeria, and that any administrative deficit in respect of that sphere should be met from Nigerian funds.

Oral Answers to Questions — EX-SERVICE MEN.

MURDERS IN IRELAND.

Sir J. BUTCHER: 32.
asked the Prime Minister whether he is aware that numerous murders of ex-service men by rebels have recently taken place in Southern Ireland; that in the month of February last eight ex-service men were so murdered; and what means exist of making provision for the families and dependents of such men?

Mr. HENRY: I regret to state that the answer to the first and second parts of this question is in the affirmative. The continued loyalty to the Empire of these gallant men who fought to uphold the honour of Ireland in the Great War is the only known cause of their murder. Apart from any payments which may be due from the Ministry of Pensions in certain cases where the murdered men were in receipt of disability pension, compensation may be claimed from the local authorities subject to the provision of the' Criminal Injuries Acts.

Sir J. BUTCHER: If the local authorities do not pay is there any mode of forcing payment, or of providing it from some other place?

Mr. HENRY: Yes, it can be deducted from the grants paid by the Crown to the local authorities, and it is open to the person aggrieved to attach by a
garnishee order any rates payable to the local authorities.

Captain LOSEBY: Has the time not now come to afford special protection to these ex-service men, whose proved loyalty makes them a certain target for this murder gang?

Mr. HENRY: Very often these men are murdered in protecting other people.

Mr. LINDSAY: Is it not the case that many of the people whose claims are not paid are not in a position to enforce them, as they cannot obtain orders such as the Attorney-General mentions, and will he see if other means can be arranged to help them?

Mr. HENRY: Every facility is given as regards deduction from the grants. I will see if these facilities can be extended.

Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCK: Is not the best protection of the ex-service men for the Government to found their policy on the principles for which these ex-service men fought?

Sir W. WHITLA: 58.
asked the Chief Secretary if he will state the number of ex-service men who have been murdered by the insurgents since 1st January, 1920?

Mr. HENRY: The number of ex-service men who are known to have been murdered by Sinn Fein rebels in Ireland since the 1st January, 1920, is 150. Of these, 80 were members of the Royal Irish Constabulary and 30 members of the Auxiliary Division. The remaining 40 were civilians.

Oral Answers to Questions — IMPERIAL DEFENCE.

CAVALRY SEDUCTIONS (GREAT BRITAIN AND INDIA).

Lieut.-Colonel CROFT: 33.
asked the Prime Minister whether the Imperial Defence Committee met and gave full considerations to the reductions in the cavalry of the United Kingdom and India, involving the disbanding in all of 67 cavalry regiments, before deciding to disband the four Regular and 45 Yeomanry regiments in the United Kingdom?

The PRIME MINISTER: The answer is in the negative. The responsibility for these reductions must be taken by the Government and by Parliament.

Lieut.-Colonel CROFT: Was the reduction of the Indian cavalry regiments settled in the first place in this country? Is the whole defensive position of the Empire being considered in this connection? So long as the vast majority of the British Army are in Mesopotamia, on the Rhine, and in Palestine, does the right hon. Gentleman not consider that the question of disbanding four cavalry regiments in this country should be delayed until some of the troops have returned to this country?

The PRIME MINISTER: The hon. and gallant Member is raising very big issues, which have been discussed at considerable length here, and I do not think that by question and answer I can possibly deal with the subject.

Lieut.-Colonel CROFT: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider my suggestion?

The PRIME MINISTER: We have considered this among other methods of securing economy in the country. We had to take into account, not merely the needs of the Empire, but the resources of this country.

CHANNEL TUNNEL.

VISCOUNT CURZON: 38.
asked the Prime Minister whether he is now in a position to state definitely that it is not now intended, under any circumstances, to proceed with the construction of a Channel tunnel?

The PRIME MINISTER: I regret that I am unable to make any statement on this subject at present.

PASSPORTS AND VISAS.

Sir H. BRITTAIN: 43.
asked the Prime Minister whether, seeing that Belgium has dispensed with the necessity for the visa on passports, and France has just decided to reciprocate, he will recommend that similar action be taken by this country with regard, at any rate, to our two nearest Allies?

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME (Secretary, Overseas Trade Department): The Belgian Government has decided to dispense with the necessity for visas for French
and American citizens and for Japanese, Italian, Luxemburg, and British subjects, but I have no information that the French Government have decided on similar action. His Majesty's Government do not at present propose to abolish the Regulation by which all aliens are required to obtain British visas before entering the United Kingdom.

Sir H. BRITTAIN: Will the right hon. Gentleman, when he has time, give his attention to this subject, the result of which would be to give intense satisfaction to our Allies in France?

Colonel ASHLEY: If France and Belgium can do away with these very irritating and expensive hindrances to trade and travel, why on earth cannot we do the same?

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: I am sure my hon. Friend appreciates that while these Regulations are somewhat inconvenient in certain cases, there are a good many other considerations.

Sir H. BRITTAIN: Do they not equally apply to Belgium, which is able to do without them?

Colonel ASHLEY: Can the hon. Gentleman answer my question why, if it is unnecessary in France and Belgium, it should be necessary in this country? What are the different circumstances?

Colonel WEDGWOOD: May we know whether the objections in this country come from the Home Office and Sir Basil Thomson's Department?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: Is it not a fact that this visa system here is necessitated by the terms of the Aliens Act passed by this House last year?

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: I think that is so.

Sir H. BRITTAIN: 82.
asked the Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs' whether he has any information as to the recent statements that the United States Government has decided to dispense with the necessity of passports for American citizens leaving or returning to their country?

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: I have no information on the subject, but I am making enquiries at Washington.

Oral Answers to Questions — RUSSIA.

TRADE AGREEMENT.

Sir H. BRITTAIN: 44.
asked the Prime Minister whether he has any information to give to the House as to the estimated value of goods, together with their nature, which it is anticipated Russia may be able to export to this country during the next 12 months?

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: I regret that it has not been possible to frame any reliable estimate.

Sir H. BRITTAIN: Will it ever be possible?

MALAY STATES AND STEAITS SETTLEMENTS.

Mr. LYLE: 45.
asked the Prime Minister whether he is aware of Bolshevist activity in the Malay States and the Straits Settlements; whether the recent Russian agreement applies to this part of the British Empire; and whether any steps can be taken to check the circulation in the parts of the Empire referred to of Bolshevist literature emanating from the United States.

Mr. AMERY: My right hon. Friend has asked me to answer this question. No report of Bolshevist activities in the Straits Settlements and the Malay States has been received from the Governor and High Commissioner. The recent Russian Trade Agreement applies only to trade between the United Kingdom and Russia, but the undertaking entered into by the Russian Soviet Government in the preamble to the Agreement to refrain from conducting any official propaganda applies to British Malaya. The laws of the Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States prohibit the circulation of seditious publications under stringent penalties.

GERMANY AND HUNGARY (EX-EMPERORS).

Mr. LYLE: 46.
asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the attempt by the ex-Emperor Karl to recover the crown of Hungary, he is ascertaining whether the supervision of the ex-Kaiser Wilhelm by the Dutch authorities is so thorough as to render any attempt by him to re-enter Germany out of the question;
and what steps the Allies propose to take to check the ex-Emperor Karl's activities in the future.

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: His Majesty's Government see no reason to question the efficacy of the guarantees given by the Netherlands Government for the safety of the ex-Emperor William. Any action that can be taken as regards the future action of the ex-Emperor Charles must depend on a joint Allied decision, for which there has not yet been time.

Sir H. BRITTAIN: Is it not a fact that the individual to whom the Kaiser party are looking forward to succeed on the Throne is not the Kaiser, but the eldest son of the Crown Prince, who happens to be in Potsdam at the moment?

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: That hardly arises out of the question.

Mr. W. THORNE: Can the hon. Gentleman state whether the ex-Kaiser is still sawing wood as a labour test?

CABINET (NUMBER OF MEMBERS).

Mr. LYLE: 47.
asked the Prime Minister whether he will consider the desirability and the possibility of reducing the numbers of the Cabinet so as to increase its effectiveness for action?

The PRIME MINISTER: The considerations mentioned by my hon. Friend were very carefully considered in constituting the present Cabinet.

FOOD CONTROL ORDERS.

Colonel GRETTON: 50.
asked the Lord Privy Seal if any of the powers and any of the Orders made by the Food Controller have been transferred to other Departments of the Government; and, if so, what powers and Orders have been transferred, and to which Departments?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Lieut.-Commander Hilton Young): By Order in Council, dated the 29th ultimo, and published in the "Gazette " on the 1st instant, all the powers of the Food Controller were transferred to the Board of Trade, with the exception of the powers given by
Section 4 of the Ministry of Food (Continuance) Act, 1920, relating to the hop growing industry, which were transferred to the Ministry of Agriculture. Any question relating to Orders made in exercise of such powers should be addressed to those Departments.

Colonel GRETTON: Can the hon. and gallant Gentleman state whether any of these 'powers formerly exercised by the Minister of Food have been relaxed, or have all the Orders been transferred?

Lieut.-Commander YOUNG: As stated in my answer, all powers are handed over. As to whether any of these powers have been exercised or not. I think it better to ask the Department which now possesses the powers.

PUBLIC EXPENDITURE.

Mr. ALFRED T. DAVIES: 66.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the admitted practice of many years' standing of permitting the Secretary to the Treasury to sanction the expenditure of public money not already voted by the House of Commons will be abandoned or limited drastically during the coming financial year; and whether any measures are under consideration with that intention?

Lieut.-Commander YOUNG: I do not think I can usefully add anything to the answers previously given to my hon. Friend on this subject, of the 16th and 24th March, to my hon. Friend the Member for South East St. Pancras on the 16th December last, and to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lewisham East on the 22nd March. The practice in question is, and always has been, strictly confined within the narrowest possible limits consistent with the carrying on of His Majesty's Government.

Mr. DAVIES: May I ask whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer will himself give favourable consideration to the matter and not the Deputy of the right hon. Gentleman?

Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSON: Can the hon. and gallant Gentleman see his way to get the Civil Contingencies Fund (Extension) Act, which was only passed for the purposes of the War, done away with: without it they would not be able
to have Supplementary Estimates or the asking for money already spent?

Lieut.-Commander YOUNG: My hon Friend is perfectly correct; the extension of the Civil Contingencies Fund was for special purposes connected with the War. When these purposes come to an end, the extension will naturally come to an end.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Will my hon. and gallant Friend, who was a financial purist when he sat on these benches, undertake to carry some of these principles into effect now that he has some responsibility?

TAXABLE INCOME.

Lieut.-Colonel POWNALL: 67.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been called to a recent series of lectures by Sir Josiah Stamp at University College, during the fourth of which he dealt with the question of the taxable income of the country; and whether, in view of the great importance of this question being fully investigated, he will arrange for the lecture in question being made available for Members of the House?

Lieut.-Commander YOUNG: My attention has been called to the lectures in question. I believe Sir Josiah Stamp is considering the question of publishing these, and I have no doubt that if published they will prove to be of great value to hon. Members.

CIVIL SERVICE (WAR BONUS).

Sir J. BUTCHER: 68.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the number of civil servants in receipt of salaries of £500 a year and upwards who have, in the course of the last 12 months, received increases of their permanent salaries apart from war bonus, distinguishing those in receipt of salaries from £500 to £1,000, from £l,000 to £1,500, from £1,500 to £2,000, and over £2,000, respectively; and the respective amounts of increase of these salaries?

Lieut.-Commander YOUNG: I have been asked to reply. As my predecessor informed my hon. and learned Friend on
the 23rd March, the information desired is being obtained. I will communicate the result to him in due course.

Sir J. BUTCHER: Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman be in a position to give me the information this day week? It is a matter of considerable importance.

Lieut.-Commander YOUNG: I will make the effort, but there are a great number of circulars to be sent to the various Departments. I hope to be able to get it, but I am not sure.

Mr. FRANCE: In view of wages and the cost of living going down, when is it proposed to reduce some of the war bonuses?

INCOME TAX (SCHOOL TEACHERS).

Mr. MAYDAY: 69.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will take the necessary steps in the Budget of the coming year to ensure that effect is given to the recommendation of the Royal Commission on Income Tax that school teachers should be allowed a rebate up to £10 in respect to fees paid to scholastic agents, and up to £20 in respect to the purchase of books?

Lieut.-Commander YOUNG: The recommendation of the Royal Commission on the Income Tax, to which the hon. Member refers, is one of many with which it has not been found practicable to deal in the Revenue Bill. These recommendations will be fully considered, with a view to submitting to Parliament, as and when opportunity arise, such legislative proposals as may be expedient.

GERMAN REPARATION (RECOVERY) ACT.

Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: 73.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the payment of the levy upon goods bought in Germany under the German Reparation (Recovery) Act, when the goods are bought in marks, at what rate of exchange will the levy be paid, at the rate prevailing at the time the purchase was made or at the rate prevailing at the time the levy is paid?

Lieut.-Commander YOUNG: In the case of goods subject to reparation pay-
ment under the German Reparation (Recovery) Act, 1921, when the invoice price is accepted as the value, and is expressed in marks, the rate of exchange taken for the purposes of the payment is the rate in force on the date on which the importing ship is reported to the Customs.

Mr. SCOTT: Reported as arriving in this country?

Lieut.-Commander YOUNG: The time when it is generally reported.

Mr. SCOTT: Is it not the case that this doubt as to which rate of exchange will prevail when this payment is made will make it impossible for these firms to make forward contracts in regard to the sale of goods, seeing they will not know the total price they will have to pay?

Lieut.-Commander YOUNG: No, Sir. I do not think that is so. As a matter of fact this is the ordinary practice in the case of the ad valorem duty payable.

GERMAN EAST AFRICA.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: 75.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what imperial subsidy was paid by Germany towards the expenses of administration and development in German East Africa in the years 1912, 1913, and 1914, respectively; whether it is proposed to grant a loan of three-quarters of a million sterling to the administration of Tanganyika Territory this year; if so, at what rate of interest and on what terms of repayment; and whether this loan will suffice to cover any administrative deficit in respect to that portion of the territory for which Great Britain has accepted the mandate?

Mr. AMERY: The German grant-in-aid to German East Africa for military expenses together with loan expenditure for each of the three years in question was:



Marks


1912
20,651,000


1913
37,776,000


1914
39,946,000


It is proposed to grant a loan of £750,000 to the Tanganyika Territory for the year 1921–1922. The terms of repayment and rate of interest have not yet been settled. The loan will suffice to cover any deficit
on the actual expenses of administration, but will not be sufficient to meet the considerable expenditure on public works and communications which is necessitated by the fact that no such works could be carried out during the War and by the damage and deterioration caused by the military operations.

BRITISH COLONIES (EX-ENEMYALIENS).

Sir W. de FRECE: 76.
asked the Undersecretary of State for the Colonies what arrangements have been made to regulate the return of Germans to those portions 01 the British Empire under the direct administration of the Colonial Office?

Mr. AMERY: Any former enemy alien seeking admission or re-admission to a colony or protectorate must have a permit signed by the Colonial Secretary or other corresponding officer of the colony or protectorate which he wishes to enter before he can be granted admission, and legislation to this effect has been passed in all the colonies and protectorates. The legislation is limited to a term of three years, at the end of which time the whole matter can be reconsidered.

CANADIAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE CANTEENS.

Mr. HURD: 74.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether representations have been received from the Canadian Government regarding the disposal of profits of the Canadian Expeditionary Force canteens; whether it was arranged with the Canadian Government that while the British troops received for each man day one share the Canadian troops should receive l3/16th share and the Australian and New Zealand troops l6/16 th share, these proportions being based on the spending powers of the different bodies of troops; whether the Canadian authorities are correct in stating that they have received no balance sheet or statement of accounts, although the business was closed on 1st May, 1919; and whether the Canadian soldiery can now be informed of the proportion of profits due to them?

Lieut-Colonel STANLEY (Financial Secretary, War Office): I have been asked
to reply. The answer to the first three parts of the question is in the affirmative. As regards the fourth part, as already announced in answer to previous questions, a Committee has been appointed to consider and advise as to the basis to be adopted for ascertaining the profits of the Navy and Army Canteen Board and Expeditionary Force Canteens available for apportionment among the various interests concerned. Pending receipt of their Report it.is not possible to say what is the Canadian share of the profits.

TOGOLAND.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: 78.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether it is true that the boundary line between the British and French mandated areas in Togoland cuts through and thereby divides in certain places native tribes and families; that this unnatural division is leading to much dissatisfaction; and whether His Majesty's Government proposes to take any steps to secure a readjustment of the boundary more in harmony with the wishes of the inhabitants?

Mr. AMERY: I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer given to the hon. Member for Moss Side on the 1st of July last. I am not aware that much dissatisfaction has been caused. It has been agreed that when the work of delimitation is being carried out such minor modifications as may be possible will be made in order to avoid the disadvantages to which the hon. Member refers. It has also been agreed that the inhabitants of the frontier regions shall be free, within a period of six months from the completion of delimitation, to transfer themselves and their property to whichever side of the boundary they may prefer.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: Has the Boundary Committee been appointed, and is it yet working?

Mr. AMERY: Perhaps my hon. Friend will give me notice.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL AIR FORCE.

EASTBOURNE. AERODROME.

Mr. RARER: 79.
asked the Secretary of State for Air who is now responsible for
the Eastbourne aerodrome, and why the same has not been retained by the Air Ministry as a supplementary landing ground, in view of the fact that this aerodrome, besides being one of the oldest in the United Kingdom, is also in the most important geographical position from the point of view of commercial aviation; and whether the Air Ministry notice, dated 1st April, cancelling notice to airmen, No. 135, dated 9th December, 1920, indicates that this aerodrome is again fit for use?

Mr. McCURDY (Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury): I have been asked to reply. This aerodrome was licensed to the Eastbourne Aviation Company, who asked for a cancellation of the licence in December last, and have since demolished the aerodrome. It was considered, with others, from the point of view of retention by the "Air Ministry, but the circumstances did not justify its selection for the purpose. The answer to the last part of the question is in the negative.

Mr. RAPER: Is it not a fact that notice was issued on the 1st of April cancelling No. 135?

Mr. McCURDY: I must ask for notice of that question.

PASSENGER AIR SERVICES.

Mr. RAPER: 80.
asked the Secretary of State for Air what is the exact nature of the arrangement made with, respectively, Messrs. Handley Page, Limited, and Messrs. S. In stone and Company, Limited, for the re-opening of their passenger air services?

Mr. McCURDY: I havie been asked to reply. As the agreement with the firms in question is not yet in its final form, I am unable, at present, to indicate its exact terms.

Mr. RARER: If I put my question down in a week's time, can I have a reply?

Mr. McCURDY: I will make inquiries.

Captain TERRELL: Are these companies now being subsidized?

Mr. McCURDY: I must ask for notice of that question.

TURKS, INTERNMENT (MALTA).

Sir C. TOWNSHEND: 81.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs relative to the following Turks, Rahmi Bey, Basri Bey, Mehmed Faik Bey, Ali Janani Bey, and Mehmed Sherif Bey, who have been interned at Malta, mostly for some two years now, and without trial, if they can now be released?

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: An agreement for the mutual release of British and Turkish prisoners was recently signed with the Turkish delegates, and it is hoped that all the persons named may shortly be set at liberty except the second, who is charged with complicity in atrocities.

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION.

SCHOOL BUILDINGS.

Mr. HAYDAY: 83.
asked the President of the Board of Education if he will state the number of cases in which local education authorities have applied to the Board for permission to build new schools and have been refused permission?

The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Fisher): There are seven cases in which, in pursuance of the announcement made in Circular 1190, the Board have refused to entertain applications by local education authorities for their sanction to the erection of new schools.

Mr. HAYDAY: Can the right hon. Gentleman give any reason why they have declined to do this?

Mr. FISHER: Generally, they take the view that the case for urgency has not been made out.

Mr. HAYDAY: Would it be on the ground of the expense of the sites, or is it the opinion of the Board that already there is sufficient accommodation?

Mr. FISHER: Both those considerations were certainly considered.

Mr. R. RICHARDSON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that parents are now threatening to keep their children away from school because of the state of the schools, and yet the Board is refusing permission to build more schools?

Mr. FISHER: I am aware that there is a great demand all over the country for additional school accommodation.

Mr. LAWSON: 84.
asked the President of the Board of Education the number of schools reported to the Board of Education or to the local authorities as requiring, in the interests of efficiency, structural or other alterations and in which the carrying out of such alterations has been postponed?

Mr. FISHER: I should not feel justified in undertaking such detailed investigation and inquiries as would be necessary to enable me to answer this question with any accuracy; nor would the result assist me to any earlier attainment of such practicable improvement of school buildings as is necessary for efficiency, which I oan assure the hon. Member I am most anxious to secure.

Mr. LAWSON: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that in consequence of the neglect of these schools the children are suffering very great hardships, and will he see that the children in these schools receive their education under conditions of comfort?

Mr. FISHER: I can assure the hon. Member that the considerations to which he refers are present to my mind. I am aware that the elementary schools have suffered a great deal during the War. There are many repairs to be undertaken and many structural undertakings which are not questions of emergency.

SCHOOL HOLIDAYS (MONMOUTHSHIRE).

Mr. CHARLES EDWARDS: 85.
asked the President of the Board of Education whether he is aware that Monday, 2nd May, will be observed as a general holiday by all workers, and that in many places sports and pastimes have been arranged on the assumption that the schools should be closed, and that in any case large numbers of children will be absent on that day; and whether, seeing that the Monmouthshire Education Committee has decided that the schools shall be open, will he take steps to counteract that decision and secure that it shall be observed as a holiday for all children who attend elementary schools?

Mr. FISHER: I have no power to require a local education authority to close its schools on any particular day.

COST OF LIVING (MINING DISTRICTS).

Mr. RAPER: I beg to ask the Secretary for Mines a question of which I have given him private notice. What is the present index figure of the cost of living in each mining district in the United Kingdom?

The SECRETARY for MINES (Mr. Bridgeman): I have not received any notice of that question.

STANDING COMMITTEES (CHAIRMEN'S PANEL).

Mr. JOHN WILLIAM WILSON reported from the Chairmen's Panel; That they had appointed Mr. William Nicholson to act as Chairman of Standing Committee A (in respect of the Police Pensions Bill and the Greenwich Hospital Bill).

Mr. JOHN WILLIAM WILSON further reported from the Chairmen's Panel; That they had appointed Sir Halford Mackinder to act as Chairman of Standing Committee D (in respect of the Docking of Horses Bill and the Performing Animals (Prohibition) Bill), in the place of Major Barnston.

Reports to lie upon the Table.

COAL INDUSTRY.

WAGES DISPUTE.

CONFERENCE PROPOSALS.

Mr. ASQUITH: Has the Prime Minister any information to give to the House as to the situation in the coal strike?

The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Lloyd George): In accordance with the statement which I made to the House last night, I invited the Executive of the Miners' Federation to meet my colleagues and myself this morning, in order to clear up what I supposed to be a misunderstanding with regard to the conditions upon which the Government would call together the coalowners and the miners for the purpose of resuming negotiations. I had, as the House will remember, laid down, in language not dissimilar to that used earlier in the Debate by my right hon. Friend the Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith), as one of the conditions upon which the Government would use its good offices for the purpose of bringing the parties together, that the Miners' Federation should take action to preserve the mines.
This morning I put it to the Executive of the Miners' Federation that, even if they had been under a misapprehension as to this matter, I hoped they would agree that, upon the merits of the case, it was impossible for negotiations to be conducted while mines were being destroyed through lack of pumping; and I appealed to them to follow the course which they had pursued during every national coal strike hitherto, and to arrange for the necessary facilities being given in order that, when work should be resumed, as many mines as possible might be intact and in a position to afford a livelihood to the miners themselves.
I regret to inform the House that I failed to obtain the consent of the Miners' Federation to this action. It was explained to me that the decision to withdraw the pumpmen had been taken deliberately, and that to allow them to return would be to throw away a weapon upon which they relied to bring the Government and the coalowners to a speedy capitulation, and it was announced to me by the Acting President and the Secretary of the Federation that, not only had the Federation decided to
refuse to enter upon negotiations under any such conditions as we have laid down, but it had been decided by the Federation that the pumpmen would not be allowed to go back to work until two fundamental principles had been conceded—a national wage system and a national pool.
I thereupon stated to the miners' representatives that this was an ultimatum setting up, on the part of the miners, a preliminary condition which the Government had already announced its decision not to impose upon the industry, namely, a resumption of control and perhaps even of subsidy; and that Parliament had already decided that control should cease. It was impossible under these circumstances for the Government to ask the parties to meet together with any hope of settlement.
It is apparent from this announcement that the issue raised is much wider than the question of the wages which ought to be paid in the industry. Upon the question of wages the Government has always kept an open mind and was prepared to use its good offices in arriving at a solution.
I regret extremely that the Miners' Federation should have taken so grave a decision, involving injury and misery to their fellow-citizens throughout the country as well as to themselves. But since it has been made clear that the miners will not consider any settlement except one which concedes their full demand, and will not except upon that condition even help to save from destruction the mines upon which their livelihood depends, the Government, relying upon the assistance of the great mass of the people, must take every means in its power to meet the situation which has arisen.

Mr. CLYNES: It occurs to me to put a question to the Prime Minister which will have in it three points. Is it not a fact that the pumpmen received, like every mine-worker, notice from the mine-owners of a reduction in their wages and that these notices were the cause of the pumpmen automatically discontinuing their work? Is it not a fact that this morning at the Conference the miners' leaders intimated their willingness to go into conference without any conditions whatever, and, therefore, would it not be in the national interest that the Prime
Minister should not put forward any obstacle to considering, without any conditions whatever, the larger issues which are really the cause of the trouble?

The PRIME MINISTER: The questions put by my right hon. Friend do not really accurately state the position. I can hardly say that the miners stated their intention to go into conference without any conditions, because, although they were perfectly prepared, it is true, to enter the room and meet the owners in conference, they did so with the condition that, unless the owners accepted these two fundamental conditions, the pumpmen would not resume work. I can hardly say, under these circumstances, that they were prepared to negotiate unconditionally. In fact, these conditions have fundamentally altered the whole position. With regard to the first question, it is perfectly true that, in order to raise the whole question of wages, notice was given to all those employed in the mines, but it has been made quite clear repeatedly that, pending the negotiations, the pumpmen would resume work under the old conditions. That has been usual in every strike, without prejudice to the issues that are involved. The same thing would apply here, but it was necessary, in order to raise the whole of the issue of the recasting of the wages, that notice should be given to all those in the mines.

Mr. CLYNES: The last question which I put was whether the Prime Minister does not think it would be best, in the national interest, that the larger issues of substance should be the subject of a conference, without any conditions being laid down.

The PRIME MINISTER: My right hon. Friend has had a good deal of experience in negotiations and so have I, and he must have come to the same conclusion as I did, that it is idle to enter into negotiations as long as the Miners' Federation adhere rigidly to the position they have taken this morning, that they must have the acceptance of two fundamental principles before they will agree to allow men to resume pumping in the mines. That is not negotiation. That is imposing as a preliminary condition the acceptance of practically the whole of the issues which are involved.

Mr. CLYNES: If I may say so, my experience of conferences is that obstacles put forward in the way of conditions usually have to be removed by those who erect them before the conference. I now want to repeat a question from which the House will see that no obstacle to the conference has been erected by the Miners' Federation. My question is this. Is there a shorthand record of the undertaking or statements of the 'miners' representatives indicating their willingness to go into conference without any condition whatever?

The PRIME MINISTER: There is a full shorthand report.

Mr. WATERSON: Is it verbatim?

The PRIME MINISTER: Yes, verbatim. [Interruptions.] If hon. Members will allow me. There is an official shorthand note taken of everything said by the miners' representatives as well as by the representatives of the Government. That will be revised by Mr. Hodges on behalf of the Miners' Federation and by some official on behalf of the Mining Department. It will be agreed whether it is accurate or not, and communicated to the Press.

Mr. HODGE: Is it not a fact that the owners themselves stated that they would not enter into negotiations unless the miners accepted as a preliminary the replacing of the safety men?

The PRIME MINISTER: I ought to correct one misstatement. I believe the report has been sent out without revision. It is a full, accurate and verbatim report which has been sent.

Mr. DUNCAN GRAHAM: Was it an agreed report.

The PRIME MINISTER: No. I have not seen it. The hon. Member will remember that Mr. Hodges said if it were a summary, it must be an agreed report, but if it were a verbatim report it should be sent to the Press. That was the statement made.

Mr. CLYNES: I need not say there is general disappointment in the House at the failure, so far, of any steps that have been taken by either of the parties to negotiate a settlement of this dispute. I am not putting these questions with the object of merely trying to score any point,
or with the purpose of increasing the difficulties. I would like to ask the Prime Minister, seeing that this point as to the miners' attitude is so much in dispute, if he will take some early steps to furnish us with an official record of what actually the miners' representatives did say on the question of going unconditionally into the conference.

The PRIME MINISTER: Every word of what was said at the conference will be sent to the Press. If the Press do not publish the whole of the proceedings, and if there is a real desire in the House for it, we can publish the report as a White Paper. I quite agree that everything that has been said on both sides ought to be fully and impartially published. I think the right hon. Gentleman will see I was so taken aback by the statement made by Mr. Herbert Smith and Mr. Hodges, that the Miners' Federation had already taken the decision that, in order to make it clear, I repeated it, and I repeated it not once but twice, hoping to get a contradiction, and hoping they would say: "You have misinterpreted and misunderstood what we meant." I am sorry to say they did not. My right hon. Friend had better wait until he sees the full report. He will see it is a much graver attitude which they have taken up than I ever apprehended, and I think he will say so himself.

4.0 P.M.

Mr. A. HENDERSON: Within the last hour I have spoken to Mr. Hodges, and he intimated to me that his Executive conveyed to the Prime Minister the willingness of the Federation to go into immediate conference with the owners without any conditions whatever. He did not deny that the statement that the Prime Minister has read took place in the conversations which followed. May I point out that the condition was first laid down by the Government and by the owners that the miners should allow the pumpmen to return to work before ever the conference was entered upon. In the opinion of some of us who have been doing our best to try to get the parties together this was the initial blunder. If that was the initial blunder, and if the Miners' Federation have erred by stating that when they got into conference they would have to discuss the question and that they would adhere to that position, then it seems to me that both sides may
have blundered in this respect; and in the interests of the community as a whole, and in view of the danger to which the community will be exposed within a few hours possibly, is it not wise—and the Prime Minister to my knowledge has done this more than once in grave disputes and it has resulted in a settlement—to say to both these parties, "Leave your conditions on one side." [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] Hon. Gentlemen who cry "No" to-day will be of a different opinion if this thing unfortunately goes on. Is it not wise that the Prime Minister should say to these parties, "Let us come face to face." I remember the difficulties in which we were during the last railway strike. I remember what took place when we first met the Prime Minister. I know all the difficulties. We had to hammer at it for four or five days, but we got a settlement on the Sunday, and I do not believe anyone would go back upon the final settlement that resulted. I believe in this case the Prime Minister should have acted upon the conciliatory spirit of the Debate the other day and have gone into conference without conditions. I am not going to disguise from the House that there would have been considerable difficulties, but I do not believe that they would have been insurmountable. It is one thing to present a condition as an obstacle to getting into conference; it is another thing to raise that very issue once, you have come face to face. Had that been done with regard to the pumpmen, I believe that the result would have been absolutely different, and, as one having nothing to do directly with this miners' case, but as one who for many years has done all he could to assist him to get through these national difficulties, I appeal to the Prime Minister once again to ask these two parties to come face to face with himself, I hope, in the chair. I believe, if that were done, even if it broke down, it would be well worth the effort.

The PRIME MINISTER: As my right hon. Friend knows, there is no one more eager to secure a possible solution of this, trouble than I am, but we did enter into a Conference. The Conference to which, he refers was one between the railway-men, the trade unions, and the Government. It was not a Conference between the railway executive and the railway leaders. They were not present. They
were simply interviews between myself and one or two miners and the railway-men. That is exactly the kind of Conference which I invited this morning. I insisted upon no preliminary conditions for the Conference with the Government. The Conference took place this morning, and at that Conference between the representatives of the Government and the miners' representatives these two conditions were laid down. My right hon. Friend indicates that it might be possible to withdraw certain conditions. He has greater influence with the Miners' Federation than I have, and, if he and those associated with him can persuade the Miners' Federation not to insist upon these preliminary conditions, because they are too vital preliminary conditions of which I had not heard, nor had any Member of this House heard, as preliminary conditions until we entered this morning, I shall be delighted. I did my best to induce the Miners' Federation to withdraw them, but there is nothing worse than to have an abortive conference between the miners' leaders and the mineowners, and, if a condition of this kind were repeated, and the Miners' Federation insisted upon it, it would simply be a second abortive conference. Therefore, speaking with some experience, I think it would be a great mistake until the Miners' Federation realise that they are insisting upon preliminary conditions which make a Conference impossible.

Mr. HARTSHORN: I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman what happened between the reading of the two letters yesterday afternoon and the announcement that was made last night. We heard the Prime Minister read a letter from the coalowners and another from the Miners' Executive, and in neither was any sort of difficulty or objection raised. Both expressed a readiness to meet the other side and to come into conference, and the House at that time thought that there was some chance of negotiations being proceeded with, and we were all hopeful that good would result. What happened between the receipt of those letters by the Government and the announcement made last night? Did the Prime Minister, on receipt of those letters, make some further communication to the Miners' Federation which raised difficulties and objections that caused this deadlock?
Was that what happened? I cannot for the life of me understand why, when the two sides were prepared to meet without any conditions, which seems to harmonise with what my right hon. Friend the Member for Widnes (Mr. Henderson) has said, there should come this deadlock between then and 8 o'clock last night.

The PRIME MINISTER: There is no mystery about it at all. A statement had been made by me in the course of the Debate that it was essential that there should be a resumption of work by the pumpmen. The reply given to me by Mr. Hodges did not give an answer on that question. The letter which I wrote to Mr. Hodges was a letter inviting him on the two conditions which I made in the speech the night before, and to which I called his attention, and he simply sent an acceptance, but he did not state that he accepted the conditions. I then wrote and asked whether the conditions which I had laid down had been accepted. He placed it before the Executive of the Miners' Federation, and the Executive said that they could not accept those conditions.

Mr. BOTTOMLEY: May I ask whether, in view of the grave crisis which has arisen, the Prime Minister will really consider giving this House itself an opportunity of declaring the terms upon which, in its judgment, this dispute should be settled with a view to embodying that decision in a special Act of Parliament, fortified with which the Government could insist upon its enforcement against both masters and men? May I have an answer to that question?

Mr. D. GRAHAM: If the Prime Minister cares to consult the OFFICIAL REPORT for last night or the night before last, he will find it stated: "Our Executive is prepared to meet the owners unconditionally." That is the position taken up to-day. You convened the Conference not to discuss our conditions at all. This morning the Executive was convened for the purpose of discussing the bar that had been put up by the employers, and our object in meeting you to-day was to intimate to you that if you are prepared to organise a meeting with the owners unconditionally we are prepared to meet them; and we are prepared to discuss the
questions on which you are putting so much stress now with the employers in your presence. I am sorry that there should be anything in the nature of a misunderstanding. If you had gone away from the Conference to-day, or if the right hon. Gentlemen who represented the Government left our meeting to-day with the understanding that we were not prepared to meet the employers unless they conceded these terms, you have gone away clearly on a misunderstanding. That is not the position of the Miners' Executive, and both my right hon. Friends have stated the position as decided by the Miners' Executive this afternoon.

The PRIME MINISTER: I do not think the House ought to be left under any misunderstanding. It is a very serious situation, and I think it is very important that both the House and the country should understand clearly what it is about. The demand by the Miners' Federation was that before they permitted the pumpmen to return to save the mines these two conditions must be accepted. If there is any misunderstanding upon that, there is no man in the House who will be more delighted than I shall be, but I have not heard a word up to the present to show that I misunderstood them, and in order to make it clear I repeated it in the last speech that I made this morning, hoping that I had misunderstood it. Then having restated it, as I have stated it now, I invited them to give an answer. They said that they had nothing to say. Mr. Herbert Smith or Mr. Frank Hodges could have replied, and I waited some time, but they said that they had nothing to say. Perhaps the House will do me the honour to look at what was said by Mr. Smith and Mr. Hodges, and what I said afterwards, and at my invitation to them to correct me if I was wrong. I should like to be corrected now. I should be only too delighted if through some mistake I had misunderstood them, because it is not a question whether I am wrong or whether any body else is right. It is a question what is the real position. If in the course of the afternoon anyone with authority, if my right hon. Friend who represents the Miners' Federation, or anyone speaking officially on behalf of the Miners' Federation—

Mr. BOTTOMLEY: At the Bar of the House. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"]

The PRIME MINISTER: If anyone rising in his place is prepared to state that these are not the two conditions upon which the Miners' Federation are prepared to resume the pumping, then I shall be very glad.

Mr. CLYNES: May I submit to the Prime Minister that this last statement to which I have just listened has no reference whatever to the point raised by my hon. Friend behind me (Mr. D. Graham). Is it not a fact that the Miners' Federation announced their readiness immediately to go into conference without conditions? Is it not further a fact that they say that if conference be resumed they will not require the pumpmen to resume work until the principle of a National Board is conceded? Are not those the facts?

The PRIME MINISTER: And pooling.

Mr. CLYNES: And pooling.

The PRIME MINISTER: That is exactly what I said. I read the words, and I will read again exactly what I said:
It was announced to me by the Acting President and the Secretary of the Federation that not only had the Federation decided to refuse to enter upon negotiations under any such conditions as we nave laid down, but it had been decided by the Federation that the pumpmen would not be allowed to go back to work until two fundamental principles had been conceded—a national wage system and a national pool.

Mr. D. GRAHAM: I am a member of the British Miners' Executive, and I am not stating my personal opinion, but the opinion of the British Miners' Executive, that they are prepared to go into a conference unconditionally. If a conference is held, the employers will be entitled to put forward their claim, we shall be entitled to put forward ours, and the result of the discussion—[An HON. MEMBER: "In the meantime the mines will be killed."] That interruption has no very great point, because the miners at least stated last night that they were prepared to meet the employers this morning on an unconditional arrangement. The Prime Minister, however, said "No." We could have met to-day and discussed the two points of difference between us, and I put it to the Prime Minister that if he is at
all anxious, and if the Government is anxious, to find a way out of the difficulty, they will be prepared to allow both parties to come face to face and discuss the matter. Surely it is not unreasonable for the miners to put forward their claim as against the employers' claim. The employers laid down certain conditions which we cannot accept without conference, and I am speaking the mind of the British Miners' Executive when I say that we are prepared to meet the employers to-night, to-morrow, or at any time the Government care to arrange a meeting, if there are no conditions attached.

The PRIME MINISTER: The hon. Member has really not answered the point. [Interruption.] The Miners' Executive stated that they decided that the pumpmen would not be allowed to go back to work until two fundamental principles had first been conceded. If the miners and the mineowners had met this morning, that condition would have been put forward. The pumpmen would not have been allowed to resume until the two fundamental principles which are to be discussed had already been conceded. Under those conditions it is futile to have a conference.

Mr. HARTSHORN: Is it not desirable that we should get back to where we were yesterday when those two letters were read? What earthly harm can be done, even if it does no good, by both sides coming together? I cannot understand the attitude of the Government in deliberately putting obstacles in the way of a meeting now. The Prime Minister says that that decision has been reached by the Executive, but other decisions have been reached by the coalowners. The coalowners have reached a decision that the Welsh miners can now go back at a 7s. per day reduction, but that decision would have to be discussed and to be, we expect, reversed in some respect if a settlement is to be effected. Whatever decisions have been reached, it is those decisions which separate the parties, and it is in some way or other a changing of the decisions that have been reached on both sides that must take place if a settlement is to be effected. Why not let these people meet this afternoon? Surely no harm can ensue. If there is a determination on the part of the Prime Minister to put this obstacle in the way
of that meeting—[Interruption]—I do not want to be offensive, and do not desire to import any friction into the discussion. I am simply referring to a fact. Yesterday afternoon, both sides were prepared to come together. The condition was to be imposed afterwards. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no!"] I asked a question, and the Prime Minister replied that, after he had received the two letters from the owners and the miners, he sent another letter, saying: "Although you have agreed to meet, before I am prepared to call a meeting you must sent me another letter intimating that you are prepared to accept certain conditions."

The PRIME MINISTER: I wrote a letter to Mr. Hodges in the morning, and asked him to come along under the conditions mentioned in that letter. He wrote to say that he would accept the invitation, but he did not say a word about the conditions. I simply wrote and asked him whether he accepted the conditions; that is all.

Mr. HARTSHORN: It seems to me that that was the best evidence that could possibly be adduced of the desire on the part of the Executive to try to meet and get a settlement, as they said in their letter. They might have said, "No, we are not prepared to accept the terms or conditions," but they said, "We will disregard this; we will go into conference unconditionally without raising any obstacle. The conditions laid down by the Prime Minister may be very difficult or impossible of acceptance, but we will not raise that difficulty; we will go into conference." It seems to me that the proper thing, after that, would have been to let the parties meet, and I do hope that the Prime Minister at this stage will agree that a meeting of the parties shall be held this evening to see if it is not possible to reach a settlement.

Lord ROBERT CECIL: I only rise to make a suggestion. I feel sure that the whole House is anxious to arrive at some solution, and that the best way of arriving at a solution is by free and open Parliamentary discussion. Accordingly I venture to ask whether the Government will not move the Adjournment of the House now—it is only they who can do that—so that we may have a discussion of this matter and clear up what, at any rate to a purely unprejudiced observer, appears
to be a misunderstanding. I hope that there is a misunderstanding, and the Prime Minister himself has said that he hopes that there is a misunderstanding. It may be that we shall be able to clear that up on the Motion for the Adjournment.

MOTION FOR ADJOURNMENT.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN (Leader of the House): I beg to move, "That this House do now adjourn"
The conditions are much graver than my noble Friend supposes, but the House, very naturally, desires to get to the bottom of the matter, as, indeed, does the whole country. I think it is a little unfortunate that we should be forced to a discussion before we have the ipsissima verba of the deputation's reply before us, but, since it appears to be the desire of the House that an irregular discussion of this kind should not go on any longer, I make this Motion, in order that the discussion may be regular.

Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: I should like to ask a question arising out of the discussion which has taken place, as I think it might throw some light on the nature of the misunderstanding. Is it not the case that the condition which has been laid down with regard to a conference—the only primary condition which has been laid down—is the condition which has been laid down by the Prime Minister and by the coalowners that, before a conference takes place, the mine workers should consent to a resumption of work by the pumpmen; and that, in reply, the mine workers have said that they will consent to that condition on 'two other conditions? That is the point that I want to clear up. After having listened to the exchange of views that has taken place, I want to suggest that the primary condition which has been laid down is the condition laid down by the mineowners that, before entering into conference, the pumpmen must resume work; and that when that condition has been put to the workers, they have said that they will only consent to it on two other conditions, but that, if that condition is removed, they are then willing to enter into conference without any conditions whatever. The conditions which it is suggested that the mine workers have raised are not primary conditions; they are only conditions to the acceptance of
the condition raised by the mineowners; and if that primary condition, which governs everything—the condition laid down by the mineowners, and embodied by the Prime Minister in his suggestion—is removed, then the workers are willing to enter into conference without any conditions whatever. Is not that exactly the position?

Mr. FINNEY: As a member of the Executive of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain, I think it is right that I should associate myself with the observations of my hon. Friend (Mr. D. Graham), who is also a member of the Executive. I should like to say definitely that we are very sorry that this misunderstanding has arisen. As we understand it on our side, we are perfectly willing and ready to meet the coalowners without conditions being attached beforehand, so that we can go into an open conference with them and discuss the points of difference between them and ourselves, with a view to arriving, as we hope, at some friendly decision that will bring us out of this great difficulty into which we have been landed by a miscarriage of good intentions. Everyone has been trying to do 'their best, but we are landed in the worst condition that we ever were in in our lives, and we want to get out of it. We want the country to help us to get out of it, and we want the Prime Minister and the Government and this House to help us to get out of it in an honourable way. We say that we are ready to go into a conference, but we do not wish to be trammelled by any conditions beforehand. We should go into that conference with a real intention to do our best to find a settlement that would be satisfactory to ourselves, and, we hope, to everyone concerned. I thought it right that I should associate myself, as a member of the Executive, with the observations of my hon. Friend. We have come direct from the Executive to this House, so that it should be understood that we are quite willing that all these things should be cleared out of the way, in order that we may have a chance to get together and see if we cannot settle the matter.

Mr. LUNN: I am totally unaware, except from what has taken place in the House during the last few minutes, of what transpired at the meeting this morning, but, coming from a mining
district, I am very anxious that every obstacle that at the moment is in the way of negotiations may be removed. I have seen a position created in Yorkshire, during the last two or three weeks, of great difficulty in this matter. It may be within the memory of many hon. Members of this House that when the Miners' Federation referred the question back to the districts as to whether they would vote for a national or a district settlement, Yorkshire's vote went in favour of a district settlement, and they came to the Federation prepared to vote for a district settlement. The National Federation, by a very large majority, decided in favour of a national settlement of this dispute. Since that moment, the associations in the South and West of Yorkshire have been meeting, and the whole position has been discussed as to what those two separate associations would offer, supposing that the Yorkshire miners were prepared to accept a district settlement. It was said by the Chancellor of the Exchequer the other night that the workmen in South Yorkshire would gain an advance in wages by a district settlement, and I think I said that many thousands of workers would not get an advance by the offer of the coalowners in South Yorkshire. I see in this morning's paper a statement by the Financial Secretary of the Yorkshire Miners' Association in which he says that two-thirds of the employes in South Yorkshire will get a reduction through the offer that is made by the South Yorkshire coalowners. But that is not my point. In West Yorkshire the Association, instead of helping towards a settlement even upon district lines, have divided up West Yorkshire into two separate associations—two separate agreements, two separate understandings—and though the Yorkshire Association has been fighting for many years for one Association for Yorkshire, the West Yorkshire Coalowners' Association say: "If you are to have a district settlement there must be an Eastern Division and a Western Division in the Western portion of Yorkshire," which means a lower rate in the new Western Division than what we have understood as being the West Yorkshire Division before.
I only point that out to show how much that has changed the Yorkshire miners' point of view and has brought him into
line, whatever was his position before, towards a national settlement of this question. Until you can get the two parties together to discuss the whole position there is no possibility whatever of a settlement of this dispute. I believe the whole mining population to-day is not only anxious but determined that the settlement must be upon national lines. I do not say that has been laid down as a condition, but I believe that is the determination of the men. But let them get together. That is the way to settle a dispute. Lay down no conditions which will prevent them. I am not expressing a, personal opinion as to whether the pumpmen should go back to work or not. I have heard this discussed for hours by delegates from various collieries, and I know what their feelings are. I know the anger that is displayed by the miners at the sudden determination of control. The Government is primarily responsible for the position, and I appeal to them in the interests of peace, not only of the miners, but of all classes of workers, and in the interests of the nation, that they should bring the two parties together without delay and immediately get the men back to work. If they could be brought together I believe the men could be got back at work by Monday morning. There is a lot of piffle talked by those who do not know anything about the position as to the condition of the mines. They are not in that disastrous condition that some people believe, but they will be if these conditions are continued, and if prompt methods were taken, as they could be taken by the Government if they wished, I believe the men could be got back to work, which means so much to the mining districts and to the nation at large.

Colonel Sir ROBERT WILLIAMS: It was said just now by an hon. Member opposite that the miners' case ought to be stated and the owners' case ought to be stated, but I think he forgot that there is a third case that ought to be stated, and that is the case of the whole population. The whole population of England is concerned in this, that disputes as to wages or hours ought not to be allowed to waste the assets of the nation, and that while the dispute is going on the coal mines ought not to suffer. Every day makes them worse, and therefore the assets of the nation are being dissipated
and wasted while the dispute is going on. I hope they have got that in their mind. I am very glad we have two Members of the Miners' Executive to answer my question if they can. The Prime Minister, if I rightly remember, stated quite clearly that the condition on which he would ask the mineowners and the men to come together was that the pumpmen were allowed to return. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] It was stated in the House on Tuesday that the condition on which the Prime Minister would act would be that the pumpmen were allowed to go back. I want to ask the Miners' Federation had they got that in their mind when they sent the acceptance? Was it not in their mind and in their knowledge that the Prime Minister had stated on Tuesday that the only condition on which he sent the letter was that the men were going back? Was there a misunderstanding about that?

Mr. D. GRAHAM: It was not a condition.

Sir R. WILLIAMS: What do you call a condition? If the Prime Minister says that the condition on which he will send the invitation is that the pumpmen go back, is not that a condition? I am certain that if any Member of the Executive could answer my question he would, and their silence is to me a proof that the miners knew, when they wrote that letter to the Prime Minister accepting his offer, that the condition on which the Prime Minister had sent it was that the pumpmen should go back. I am quite content to leave it where it is, and I am very sorry that neither of the Members of the Miners' Executive has got up to answer my question.

Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCK: I wish to make a brief but very earnest appeal to the Prime Minister. Is it not, after all, the most important thing in the interests of the nation that the parties in this dispute should meet together once more, and is it not possible that if they do meet a more conciliatory and reasonable spirit will be displayed?

Lieut.-Colonel Sir S. HOARE: I hesitate to say anything at all, but it seems to me the situation is so serious that even a private Member like myself cannot leave it without saying something. Yesterday the hon. Member (Mr. Duncan Graham) made a very bitter speech, and
seemed to me to make the situation much more difficult than it was when the Prime Minister made his statement, but I do not want to be diverted on that account from trying to find some escape from what seems to me to be a very unfortunate misunderstanding. The Prime Minister to-day has stated that the Miners' Executive insisted upon two conditions prior to sending the pumpmen back. Certain hon. Members opposite seem to doubt the accuracy of that statement, and to be under the impression that there has been some misunderstanding. It seems to me to be vitally important that there should be no misunderstanding whatever on this point. Would it not be possible here and now for the Prime Minister during the Sitting of the House to communicate at once with Mr. Hodges and to find out whether the situation is as is described by hon. Members opposite or is not? It seems to me that only in that way can misunderstanding be avoided. I cannot help thinking that both miners and owners would be wise to set aside any preliminary condition at all and to go into a conference at which the first subject for discussion would be the question of the withdrawal of the pumpmen. It seems to me that if no conference is held the pumpmen certainly will not return, and on that account the owners will be no better off. It might be impossible that the owners and the men can come to any agreement. At the same time it seems to me to be the only hope of getting the pumpmen immediately back that to-day, if possible, at any rate without any delay, the two parties concerned should meet under the presidency of a representative of the Government and see whether, as the first subject of the conference, they cannot come to an agreement on sending the pumpmen back at once. Having said that I can say nothing more, but feeling as strongly as I do, I thought it necessary to throw out that suggestion.

The PRIME MINISTER: Perhaps the House will allow me to make a fuller statement than I could in the course of replies to questions across the Floor of the House. If the House can be brought back to the position of Tuesday it will show quite clearly, I am afraid, that it is not a question of misunderstanding between the parties, but a very fundamental issue which has been raised, and
I do not want the House to minimise in the least the gravity of the situation. If it were purely a misunderstanding between the Miners' Federation and the Government that could easily be cleared up, in the way indicated by my hon. Friend, by sending over to Mr. Hodges and asking him whether we failed to understand each other this morning. But that is not the case, and it is no use our going away under the impression that it is a mere matter of verbal misunderstanding, and discussing things as we did this morning in a perfectly calm and friendly attitude. What is the position? The question of condition was raised first of all by my right hon. Friend (Mr. Asquith) in the Debate on Tuesday. He first of all makes two practical suggestions. I am not going into those because they do not arise at the present moment. Then he said:
Let me add that I think it is an essential preliminary condition to any such discussion that in the meantime the life of the mines should be preserved in its integrity. After all, these are the great potential sources on which the prosperity of this industry depends. We are all directly concerned, practically every household and every trade in the country is concerned with the industry, and dependent upon it. It is a national duty not to squander or wantonly to injure that infinitely valuable source of our future prosperity. If, that condition being fulfilled, it were possible for the Government to encourage the bringing together even at this stage of the interests concerned to discuss the matter in that spirit and more or less on that basis, gloomy as the prospect appears to be, I cannot altogether abandon the hope that we may yet be saved from what threatens to be an irreparable national disaster."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th April, 1921; cols. 175–6, Vol. 140.]
That was the question of the condition. It was raised first of all by my right hon. Friend, and I afterwards repeated it at the end of the statement which I made that very evening:
It is essential that the Miners' Federation should give every facility and assistance to prevent the pits from being destroyed and also to save the lives of those poor dumb animals which, I am sorry to say, in a few instances at the present moment are living under horrible conditions and have been allowed to remain down the pits. I only want to make that condition, and I think it is worthy of the House to protect these poor animals."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th April; col. 235, Vol. 140.]
That was the position on Tuesday night. The following day I wrote an indentical letter to Mr. Hodges and to Mr. Evan
Williams inviting them to a conference at the Board of Trade this morning and calling their attention to the statement I made in the House. It depended upon the conditions which had been laid down. The replies I read to the House. The mineowners referred to the conditions, and practically repeated the conditions made by the Government. Mr. Hodges made no reference at all to them. I then wrote to Mr. Hodges and asked him whether I was to assume— I have not the actual words—that the conditions laid down, and which I quoted from my speech, were accepted by the Miners' Federation. The Miners' Federation replied in the terms which I summarised to the House last night, that they could not accept the conditions. I then invited them to meet me and my colleagues this morning. They refused to accept the conditions, and they went beyond that. I will read what Mr. Herbert. Smith said on behalf of the Miners' Federation. It is on page 20. He said:
It is no good our bargaining about this, Mr. Prime Minister. We have got to get first two fundamental principles agreed to, the National Wage Board and the National Pool, and then we can talk about the safety men.
I replied:
So far as we are concerned if you insist upon that and say that the safety of the mines is not to be proceeded with, that you will not permit us to take the necessary steps to ensure the safety of the mines until we have conceded beforehand two things which, amongst others, will have to be discussed, then that is an impossible position. That is an ultimatum of a much more serious character.
That is my answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Mr. Hartshorn). It is not we who ruled out these things from discussion, but it is the statement of Mr. Herbert Smith that until these two points have been conceded the pumpmen will not be allowed to resume work. Those are the conditions of the Miners' Federation and not ours. Mr. Frank Hodges replied to me:
To be perfectly frank, that is the decision of the Federation.
I said:
I am very sorry.
I then asked that we should be allowed to retire to consider this very grave statement, and on returning I made a statement. I am only repeating this in order to show that I tried to make it clear to
the Miners' Federation what I believed to be their position, and I invited them to correct me if I was wrong. I said:
One of the statements made by Mr. Herbert Smith and Mr. Frank Hodges put it very clearly and definitely. I think the only difference between us was whether the arrangement as to the pump men should be the preliminary condition of the negotiations or whether it should be left to be discussed at the first meeting of the joint Conference. I understand now, from Mr. Herbert Smith, that under no conditions can the Miners' Federation agree to take steps to preserve the mines from destruction unless there is an acceptance in advance of two fundamental principles, one the National Wages Board and the other the National Pool. I do not see how this can be achieved without either control or subsidy, but I should be quite willing to listen to arguments on that point—
I did not rule that out—
because neither control nor subsidy can be agreed to as part of a permanent arrangement in regard to the miners, and to say that this must be agreed to before steps are taken to save the mines raises an issue of the very gravest importance.
If there was a misunderstanding there was an opportunity for correcting it. I stated with the most complete clearness to the miners then what I conceived to be their two conditions, and I ended up by saying:
This is one of the gravest challenges that has ever been thrown at the State.
Then I added:
I do not know whether you would like to say something now or to discuss it among yourselves.
I thought they would like to retire and discuss it among them selves, or to discuss the answer which they had given. Mr. Herbert Smith—this was after consultation with Mr. Hodges; he did not answer straight away, but he turned to Mr. Hodges, and then he said:
I think we have nothing further to say on the matter.
I said:
Well, I am sorry.
If there be a misunderstanding, it was a misunderstanding which could have been corrected at the time, because I stated, I think, with absolute clearness what I understood to be the two preliminary conditions imposed by the Miners' Federation before they could, as I put it, permit pumping. I did not say "resume pumping," but "permit pumping." Mr. Herbert Smith said that he had nothing to say. I do not mind saying that I am
very surprised. If there is some misunderstanding; if Mr. Herbert Smith did not quite understand what was the decision of the Federation, after consultation with Mr. Hodges, then we should all be delighted to see the matter put right; but I do not want the House to minimise in the least the gravity of the position if that represents the deliberate decision of the Miners' Federation. I have not yet heard. I know that one of the hon. Members for Scotland (Mr. Duncan Graham) takes a very strong view upon the subject; but what I should like to know is whether this is the deliberate decision of the Miners' Federation. We made it quite clear on Tuesday and it found general acceptance in the House. There was no challenge when the statement was made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Paisley early in the Debate. He got up about 6 or 7 o'clock, in a very full House, when the Labour Members were well represented as well as other sections of the House, and stated the condition very clearly. I stated it in an equally full House later in the course of the evening, and I never heard any protest from any quarter. That condition is a condition which I should have thought was vital to any negotiations.
It is no use getting the miners and the mineowners together if the first thing that happens is this: that it will be said, "What about the pumping of the mines. Something must be done to prevent the mines being destroyed, because there are very valuable mines which are being destroyed at this very hour, and there is interference with voluntary efforts to save them." Therefore, the first thing that would happen after the Chairman had taken his seat would be this: "Let us consider the question of pumping the mines." The first answer given by the Miners' Federation would be the answer which they gave to me this morning, that they had deliberately decided that they would not permit the pumpmen to return unless two fundamental principles had been accepted. It is useless to have a conference under those conditions. I am sure that those who have been engaged in industry on both sides, and who have had experience of negotiating, will know how futile it is to proceed with negotiations under such conditions. It really only exasperates and irritates, and until those conditions are withdrawn, until the miners are prepared during the nego-
tiations to act in a spirit of truce we cannot proceed to negotiate. It is only a question, I believe of 25,000 men altogether out of a total of over 1,000,000. Could they not permit these 25,000 men, or a minimum in the most dangerous pits, to look after the pumps, just during the time that their leaders and the mine- owners were sitting round the same table to discuss this question? I do not think it is an unreasonable thing to ask, but it is a perfectly unreasonable thing to attempt to discuss this question when the mineowners know that their mines are being destroyed. If anyone will read the speeches they will see that it was 'defended as an act of war. It was said that it really would speed up a decision. Any body who believes that does not under stand the psychology of their own people, and it is for that reason, so far as we are concerned, that we use no language of menace at all; for the simple reason that, apart from the effect of the language of menace on policy, I know perfectly well that it only puts up the backs of people and makes them more determined to fight—

Mr. J. ROBERTSON: Yes, emergency orders.

The PRIME MINISTER: What is true about the miners is equally true about the mineowners. We are all of the same flesh and blood, and the idea that if you just say to the mineowners, "Unless you agree to this speedily your mines will be completely destroyed" that they will surrender shows that they do not understand the spirit of their own people. It does not conduce to agreement, and until there is an agreement upon this matter we must concentrate upon doing our best to save the mines and must ask the owners also to assist us to save the mines and all well-disposed citizens to assist also. When the mines are perfectly safe those will be the only conditions under which we can have negotiations. That is the position. If anyone will say that the statement of Mr. Herbert Smith and Mr. Frank Hodges was misinterpreted by me I should be very glad. Mr. Herbert Smith does not say so, Mr. Frank Hodges does not say so, but if on reflection they come to a different conclusion we shall all be rejoiced if it be possible to resume negotiations.

5.0 P.M.

Mr. CLYNES: It is not usual for the Prime Minister in a situation like this to explain to the House at great length how impossible it is to have a conference unless and until this and that condition is agreed to beforehand. What I have in my mind, and what I hope will be generally shared by the House when I have done, is that instead of anticipating difficulties and believing in advance that those difficulties will make conference fruitless, we should view it from another angle, and assume that even if the conference fails it would be well worth trying it without any conditions. The Prime Minister has not yet dealt with the point repeatedly pressed by two members of the executive of the Miners' Federation. It is the point which is in no way disputed by this report, that the Miners' Federation have expressed their willingness to go into a conference without conditions. There never was in the industrial history of the country a moment of greater crisis than this, and it may be that we have not yet reached the height of the crisis. Other large bodies are conferring and considering as to what they ought to do, and we cannot set aside the probability of bad being made even worse. Therefore I say that the Government should rise to the height of its wisdom by allowing no minor consideration, no secondary cause, to stand in the way of the possibility of an agreement being reached between the two great parties to this dispute.
I must not be taken as defending the action of the Miners' Federation on the question of pumping. It is not necessary I should do so for the purpose of putting my view. My view is that if you are going to allot blame or regard these acts as blameworthy, the two parties surely are to blame. The mineowners who gave notice to the pumpmen are as much to blame as the Federation is to blame for telling the pumpmen to accept the notices and conform to them. The position of the pumpmen for the moment is of secondary importance to the larger national issues involved in the dispute as a whole, and it is upon that aspect of the question I should like to address a few words to the Prime Minister. I was in doubt as to what the Prime Minister said on this question of the pumpmen in the Debate on Tuesday, but I was not left in any doubt after the Prime Minister spoke on Wednesday. It is quite clear from every record that the Prime Minister has
laid it down that conference must be subject to the acceptance of this condition—the return to work of the pumpmen. That is the Government's position. Very well! The miners' representatives say, "In answer to that one condition we offer you two. If you insist upon the return of the pumpmen as a condition of approaching the question of general settlement, we say you must accept two of our conditions before we go into a general discussion on the whole of the wage question." [HON. MEMBERS: "Your conditions."] Well, if hon. Members think that, anything can be done for the preservation of property by the maintenance of this attitude I do not share their view. We must look at this question, not merely from the standpoint of what we would like to get, but of what it is possible in the circumstances to get. You may exhaust yourself in appealing to the miners to go back to the pumps and find that they have not gone near the pumps at all; you may waste your energies in that way; but the real question is, which is the wiser as well as the fairer thing to do to deal with the general question?
The Prime Minister speaks of a truce. That is exactly what the miners' leaders ask for, but not a truce limited to the return to work of one group of workmen. Let it be a complete truce. The miners' leaders say: "Yes. We shall have a truce, but it must be a truce under which all the men will come back to work on the terms existing before the stoppage." [HON. MEMBERS: "What about the pits"?] I think hon. Members are only magnifying the seriousness of the property difficulties that so far have resulted from the neglect of pumping, and I am asking hon. Members to balance the probabilities of profit and loss arising from this attitude as regards the industry as a whole. Let a week-end go over without the Government moving from this position and the miners will not have moved. We may travel through next week, and so on, the dispute not being narrowed but extended, and let us see" whether at the end of that time we can claim any credit for displaying this spirit of stubbornness, or for standing upon a condition that should never have been enforced. The Prime Minister is not given to building up obstacles in the way of conference or to imagining insoluble difficulties. I would prefer to look at this matter on the assumption that if the two
parties get together, so much is at stake that their minds will be attuned to a process of "give and take," but if you start by insisting that one side must, to begin with, do something which you know it is unwilling to do you are doing something which is absolutely fruitless. I say, then, the miners' leaders wish to have a truce, and the Prime Minister has done no more than to amplify what he said very clearly on Wednesday. All that Members of the House can do now is to appeal to the Prime Minister to further discuss the matter with the miners' leaders, or jointly with them and the; owners, to see whether some arrangement cannot be come to between them without insistence on this condition as to the return of the men to the pumps. What, is the good, at this stage of the dispute, of insisting upon a condition which I am sure is not laid down merely for property reasons?

Sir J. BUTCHER: It affects not parties, but the whole nation.

Mr. CLYNES: I want the masters to look at this question of the pumps from the standpoint of the miners. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why only the miners?"] I do not say only from the miners' point of view. I am afraid some hon. Members are looking at it only from their own standpoint. A good thing in this question is at least to try your best to get the standpoint of the other man. I am not altogether an infant in questions of negotiation. For 30 years I have had some little experience of industrial conferences, and I have learned how helpful it is to try to get the standpoint of the other side. How does the miner look at this? He argues that it was not he who took the first step to cause the stoppage. Secondly, he says the pumpmen are part of the general army of mining labour; that they were as subject to the threatened reduction of wages as anybody else, and that the stoppage of the pumpmen is a strategic advantage to the miners in this particular struggle. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, oh!"] I am putting the miners' view, not my own. I have my own view of the strategic value of this particular step. I have always believed that in these industrial struggles the first thing a labour leader ought to try to do is to win over to his side the great court of public opinion. Even if it requires a magnanimous concession to do so, it is well worth it in the
general balance of advantages and disadvantages as they may arise. Try to look at the question as the miner sees it and not as any hon. Member or I or any other individual happens to see it. He thinks there is strategic advantage in this, that it would so completely prevent the mines from being used by other people and would inflict such a sense of loss upon the mine-owner and upon the Government that it was a good thing to do— I will not say "good," but at any rate a necessary thing to do. Result: The miner says, "The pumpmen are out with the rest of the men and will stop out until the rest of the men can go back." Viewing all these points as they are embedded in the minds of the workers, it will not do for the Prime Minister to console himself with the idea that it is not he who will give way, but the miners who will have to give way. I fear he will have to entertain that hope for some time before it is realised. I suggest to him that time in this case is the essence of any opportunity this House is to have to make a real contribution towards the settlement of this very serious question.
I want to put one other view. The miners declare that if they go into a conference and there is an insistence upon the return of the pumpmen, that: return can take place only on the condition that they are guaranteed the national wage and the pooling arrangement, but they do not insist on either of these conditions if the condition of the Prime Minister is first of all removed. I am trying to place this problem before you as a complete one. You cannot say you must have the question of the pumps settled as a detached one before you go into any other matter. It has become a part of the general question, and, I almost fear, a part which cannot be segregated from the whole until the whole problem comes under general discussion as between miners and owners. I am driven to that conclusion by my inner knowledge of the industrial situation and the general working-class view as expressed by the various leaders of organised labour who recently held mutual conferences. In this House we have been trying to use Parliamentary opportunities to make a real contribution to settling industrial problems, but if this particular obstacle of the Prime Minister's
is insisted upon and if other Members of the House magnify it, as I fear many of them are doing, to the exclusion of even considering the miner's point of view, they are not making themselves helpful at this moment of crisis. The only thing we can do is to ask the Prime Minister to carry his notion of a truce to the uttermost extent and ask for a resumption of work by the whole of the men on such conditions, as regards State support or State action, as can temporarily be arranged until the two parties are able to come to terms.
Again, I approach the point of what is to be the financial profit or loss from any such action. If right hon. and hon. Members are to attach so much importance to the question of pumping on the ground that it seriously affects the value and the condition of property, if they are to look at this matter always from the angle of money—[HON. MEMBERS. "No," and "The nation."]— I fear that I have failed to make myself clear. There is no life at stake. What is at stake is the property value and the property condition of the mines. [HON. MEMBERS: "The life of the nation," and "The industrial life of the country."] The mines must be affected by the incoming of water, and, of course, the nation shares the view that property is being so damaged. Thus we approach the question from the standpoint of its value in terms of property, and the conclusion we reach is, that if the action of the Government in relation to pumping is the cause of the continuance and extension of this damage, its continuance and extension will have involved the nation in greater loss of property and money than the nation would incur in even making a permanent contribution of money to the solution of this question. [Hon. MEMBERS: "No!"] If I am not justified by the facts at the moment, feel that I shall be justified by events in a few weeks. All I can do now is to repeat my appeal to the Prime Minister not to regard his action as the very limit of his resources of negotiation. He has still unrevealed arts in moments of crisis and difficulty, and I am sure that he has not done himself justice in coming from that conference without having tried to bring the two parties together, free of conditions and in the belief that under his guidance we would put an end to this dispute.

Lord R. CECIL: I intervene for a few moments because it is partly owing to me that this discussion has taken place. After listening to what the Prime Minister has read from the account of the discussion between himself and the miners' representatives, it is difficult to see that there was any misunderstanding. I think it right to say that, because I suggested that there was a misunderstanding, and now that we have fuller information, I do not see any ground for that suggestion. As I understand it, the position taken up by the miners' representatives was this: that they were not prepared to permit the safety men to resume work until the two conditions of a national wage and a national pool had been conceded. I do not understand them to take up the position that they were not prepared to go into conference until those conditions had been granted. They were prepared to go into conference, but they did say, as far as my opinion of what was read to the House is concerned, in the clearest language, that when they got into that conference they would not agree to the return of the safety men until those two conditions had been conceded. That is a very serious position. Because I agree with a great deal that fell from the Prime Minister as to the danger of a conference in those conditions.
It is obvious that if you are to have a conference in which the first things to be discussed are the national wage and the pooling arrangement that may last for a long time before you begin even to discuss the question of the return of the safety men, and all that time the damage will go on. And I agree very much with what has been said by more than one speaker that this is not only a question of the injury of the owners' property but a question of a national injury. It is an injury to the miners. It means if we are to talk in terms of war, which I deplore, that the devastation after the war is to be greater than it would otherwise be. I see therefore very great difficulty in the way of a conference on those terms, and, though it does not matter whether I regret it or not, yet I do regret very much the attitude that has been taken up by the miners' representatives in this matter. I think that it is deplorable. I think that it will be regarded by the public opinion of the country as deplorable. I think that
it will do their cause a great deal of injury, and I regret it because I think that it proceeds on what is to be a fundamental misconception—that you can arrive at a settlement by force. I do not believe in that in international affairs, and I believe in it still less in domestic affairs. It is a deplorable situation when you get one class, whether they are employers or employed, saying that they are going to force a settlement. Therefore if I were in a position to make an appeal I would appeal with all my strength and emphasis to the miners to withdraw this attitude which they have taken up and to allow the property on which their livelihood and the prosperity of the nation so largely depend to be saved.
But at the same time—perhaps I am an incurable optimist— I cannot absolutely abandon my belief in the reasonableness of my fellow men. I want to see everything tried. I want to see every avenue of settlement explored, and though I agree with the Prime Minister that there is a great disadvantage and there may be a certain danger in a conference when you have already been warned that one of the parties is going to take up what I must at any rate call an inadmissible attitude, still will it really do any harm to have such a conference? Is not there some chance, even if it is a hundred to one chance, that it may conduce to a settlement. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!" "Yes!" and "Will they come?"] I know nothing about it except what has passed in this Debate, but I understand that they are prepared to enter and discuss matters in unrestricted conference as they call it, in which the matter can be discussed. Surely it is worth the trial. If it results in a breakdown that breakdown must take place immediately, and I cannot help feeling that in view of the strong recommendations of some hon. Members and right hon. Members of this House there would be some chance of success. In view of the strong recommendation of my right hon. Friend (Mr. Clynes) that there should be such a conference I feel that there is sufficient chance that such a conference might lead to a more rational or rather, I should say, more hopeful frame of mind than prevails at present to justify me in asking the Prime Minister and the Government very respectfully to consider whether it would not be worth
while to try even this expedient, even if the probabilities of its success are remote.

Mr. D. GRAHAM: The statement made by the Prime Minister is very clever, but that is all that can be said for it. Notwithstanding what he has said, I wish to say that if any statement was to be read to this House the whole statement should have been read, and, if it had been, one or two misconceptions might have been removed from the minds of certain of the Members of this House. You imagine, for instance, that you are going to save the mines if the pumpmen are allowed to work, but you are not. The pumpmen are not the most essential men. [HON. MEMBERS: "The safety men."] I will deal with that. I happen to know something about it. The pumpman are of comparatively small importance in the question of safety. If all the safety men were to be employed it would be necessary to employ 30 or 40 per cent, of the men who have already stopped. The fireman is as necessary as the pumpman. The pump man cannot go down the pit unless the fireman is there. The repairers are required if the pit is to be kept in a condition for working, and the point which I am now making was put to the Prime Minister to-day. He says, of course quite correctly, that it was suggested that 25,000 men would cover the men who were in the minds of the employer, but, if so, then the employers are not troubling themselves about the safety of the mine, because if you want the mines to be in a condition for the re sumption of work a week or a fortnight or a month hence they will require not merely the pumpers, but the repairers and the firemen, and these will include an enormously larger number than the number stated by the Prime Minister. Again, the shift men or on cost men—

The PRIME MINISTER: May I remind the hon. Gentleman that this morning my figures were accepted by all the other miners' representatives who were there, and he is simply taking a different view.

Mr. D. GRAHAM: I still stand to that position, and it is perfectly correct. The shift men or on cost men, which include pumpers, repairers and road men, are
all necessary for the safety of the mine and keeping it in good condition for working, and they are not the most important portion of the mining community, because the man who produces the coal, the actual coal getter, is the most important man. If the employers are anxious to have their pits kept in good condition and say that they are willing to pay the wages that were in existence up to the end of March for that class of labour, if they are willing to pay the wages for that class of labour, which is unremunerative to a certain extent—it certainly is not productive—why are they not prepared to pay the same wage to the whole of the men engaged in the mines until the question of the national agreement has been considered and decided? That is our position. When we met the Prime Minister this morning, we did not meet to discuss the points on which he has laid such emphasis this afternoon. We met to consider the question of the bar that has been put up by the Government and by the employers before a meeting could be held. We were prepared yesterday to go into conference with the employers, free of conditions, and when we met the employers we would have claimed, whether the meeting was held a week or a month or a year hence, a national wages agreement. That is our claim, and we are prepared to bring forward arguments that will justify the operation of a national wages agreement. But that matter was secondary so far as our business with the Government this morning was concerned. We were anxious to find out whether the Prime Minister was prepared to remove that ban and allow us to meet the employers, but he rather cleverly converted the discussion into one whereby he got an opinion of the position the miners would adopt when they met the employers. He immediately makes that a cause of trouble, and now takes the side of the employer, I suppose quite naturally.
I want to be quite frank and fair. I voted in favour of meeting the Government with the object of paving the way to a meeting with the employers, but if this House decides to prejudge the case, and that is evidently what is the intention of the Government, they are not convincing me. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] If it is not so the House will be prepared to allow us to put our own case to the
employers, and it will leave the matter as it stands. If the House is not prepared to do that, the Government will accompany us in our meeting with the employers, and will say that this is the considered opinion of the House of Commons, and that the House of Commons represents the opinion of the country. We do not want to be put in that unfair position. We have considerable difficulties even at the best. We do not want to have our case prejudged before we meet the employers. I would remind the Prime Minister that when a decision is reached, which will mean advising the men to resume work: it is not the Members of the Government who will give that advice to the men. They will leave that rather distasteful job to the trade union agitators and the Labour Members of this House. I happen to know, and any Member of this House who has any knowledge of mining conditions or represents a mining constituency knows, that when the time comes for us to advise the men to resume work, we have not a very pleasant job. I do not think it is fair on the part of the Government and the employers, and particularly on the part of the Government, having the influence and the power they have, to load the dice against us. That is exactly what is being done. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"]
I have been described as not much of a diplomatist, and it is also said that if I got my way there would be little chance of a settlement. The man who makes that statement does not know what he is talking about. I may have a rather rough exterior, but I have a very kindly heart. I would be very sorry to be the cause of a single extra day's stoppage of the mines, but, after all, the miners are being asked to submit to conditions which will make their lives impossible, and, while the leaders of the miners and members of the Labour party are prepared to do as much as it is humanly possible for men to do, in the national interest and for the national good, still we are in the position that we cannot advise the men to accept these terms. We cannot do it, because you are asking them to go back to conditions worse than those of 1914. I put it to the Prime Minister and to the House that, instead of their putting any barriers in the way, they should help in the removal of obstacles. I repeat that we did not lay down a condition, but we
must fight for the principle, which is an entirely different thing. We are not laying it down as a condition to-night. We ask that no bar should be put in the way of the employers and the miners meeting. When we meet the employers will put forward their claim, and we will put forward ours. It is possible that we shall not agree, and there may not be a settlement, but at least, so far as we are concerned, we are putting no barrier in the way of a meeting. I do not want to be unfair to the employers or to the Government. I want the position of our association to be put fairly and to be judged fairly. You cannot judge fairly if you come to the conclusion that we are wrong before we have stated our case.
With regard to public opinion, I have been in a number of strikes more or less successfully, and I never remember a time when we were right from the point of view of the public. The public were always against us, and we were always right because we always won. We have gained our points, and we shall gain the point for which we are fighting now, whether or not we are compelled to go back on the conditions offered by the employers. In the course of time we are bound to gain the point we are now claiming, namely, a national regulation of wages. The miner who works in South Wales under difficult and abnormal conditions is entitled to a reasonable wage equally with the man who is working in the same colliery and in the same seam or in any other part of the country under better national conditions. If you are anxious to look at this matter from the standpoint of national interest, let it be remembered that the employers do not consider the national interest at all. If it were possible for you to get the facts as to what has happened during the last few months, you would find that millions of pounds' worth of material have been put into the mines and hidden. That is in preparation for the passing of control. There are very few collieries, at least in Scotland or in that part of it from where I come, in which it will be necessary for the employer to purchase timber for the next 5 or 6 years. The employer claims, evidently with the support of the Government, that if he happens to have a colliery situated under good conditions, convenient to the seaboard or to a market, and he can get a high price with a small cost of production, the miners working
in that colliery should be paid only the average wage obtainable in collieries working under infinitely worse conditions. We contest that point on the ground of national utility and national good.
We claim that the attitude of the employers is unnational rather than national. I do not want to enter into a discussion of the whole matter, however. So far as we are concerned as an executive, we may not be very clever people, but we are honestly anxious to serve the interests of that section of the community which is connected with the Miners' Federation, and they are a very big part of the public. We ask also that the Government, instead of prejudging our case or requesting this House to do so, should leave the field clear. We will try to put our case fairly and reasonably. If we fail to agree, the matter can come back to this House, if the Prime Minister desires. So far as we are concerned, we are quite willing to meet. I hope the Prime Minister will not be different this afternoon from what he was at the start of our meeting with him this morning. He was then very well disposed towards us, and I think he could have cracked jokes with us. He was not inclined for much cracking of jokes when we had finished, but if he is in the same humour now, or if he can get himself into the same humour as when we met him this morning, he will remove a barrier that stands in the way of a meeting of the Miners' Federation executive and the colliery owners.

Mr. ASQUITH: I am sure the House has listened with great sympathy to the genial outpourings of the hon. Member who has just sat down. If I may so, his speech was admirable in temper, and he presented the case with much force and with complete moderation of spirit as well as of statement. I regret he should have been tempted to imagine for one moment that this House is in any disposition to prejudge the case. I am certain that that is not the temper of the House. Very much the contrary. I myself, speaking two or three nights ago, not only dwelt upon the fact, which is proved by experience, that the miners of this country are a body of men who do not rush in fits of passion or impulse into great adventure of this kind, but I also acknowledged that there were many points of serious substance between them-on the one hand and
the coalowers upon the other, and, I will add, the community at large as a third party, which were entitled to be dispassionately considered and discussed at a joint conference. I am certain there is no disposition in any quarter of this House to prejudge the issue of such a discussion, and still less to prejudge it unfavourably to the miners. As far as we are concerned, the dice will not in any sense be loaded. I confess I have listened to this discussion with profound disappointment and regret. I had hoped—we had all hoped—forty-eight hours ago that we were at any rate within a measurable prospect of setting up the machinery for a settlement of the many grave and difficult and complicated questions which this case presents.
I used at the close of my speech one expression which I wish I had not used, or I wish I had expressed it somewhat differently, in a passage which has been very properly quoted by the Prime Minister. I said, after making one or two practical suggestions, "I think it is an essential preliminary condition to any such discussion that in the meantime the life of the mines should be preserved in its integrity," I used the word " condition," and I thought at the time that I" was speaking with the general assent of almost everybody in the House. I was not attempting to lay down anything by way of stipulation, as lawyers do, on entering on an arbitration; the terms and conditions by which the judgment of the referee should be guided and to which it must conform. What I was saying was this. We know the miners. I have had, as I reminded the House at that time, as close and as anxious an experience as anybody of them during a six weeks' national strike, and during the whole of that strike, when very embittered feelings were aroused, there was no. attempt to interfere with the preservation of the safety of the mines, from beginning to end. There may have been one or two isolated cases, but it was never any part of a systematic or recognised policy of the leaders of the miners, very able men as they were—indeed it was a policy which they repudiated—not to preserve that which was the common asset—who not forget that—of mineowners, of miners, and of the community, namely, the life and integrity of the mines themselves. Therefore, when I spoke of the hope of going into a conference, I assumed—and
I was not attempting to lay down lawyers' conditions—that my hon. Friends on this Bench who represent the Labour party received my remarks with perfect sympathy, as also did the whole House. The Prime Minister later on in the evening repeated very much the same thing, but I believe he did not use the word "condition," which I have used. That was the whole purport of my remarks. I would omit the word "condition" perhaps, but in substance and spirit I repeat to-day what I stated then.
When the Prime Minister wrote his letters, and when his invitation was accepted, as I understand it was, by both parties, and when he met the miners this morning, he found, from the reports presented to us, that the language used on the part of the representatives of the miners was this. The Prime Minister seems to have said: "All we are asking is that whilst the negotiations are going on firing should cease and the armies should stand to arms." That is picturesque language, and I understand that that was his rhetorical method, of which the Prime Minister is such a past master, of suggesting that they should let the pumping men come in. This is the reply—and I am reading from the transcript of the shorthand notes. Mr. Herbert Smith, who was the leading representative, I understand, of the Miners' Federation, said: "It is no good our bargaining about this. We have got to get these two fundamental principles agreed to—the national wage board and the national pool—and then we can talk about the safety of the mines." The Prime Minister described this as an ultimatum. Mr. Hodges said: "That is the decision of the Federation." I cannot help thinking—some members of the executive of the Federation, I hope, are still here—that there is room for a reconsideration, on their part, of that statement. It is very dangerous to hold people, as the French say, to the foot of the letter in a conversation of this kind, more or less informal, and I cannot believe that it is the settled determination of the Miners' Federation to postpone, in any discussion that takes place, the consideration of the safety of the mines till first of all the two most thorny and most vexed questions in the whole controversy, namely, the national wage and the national pool, have been decided, and, as I gather, decided in their favour.
Let me appeal to them. I am speaking as an old friend of theirs—I really am—certainly with no kind of prejudice against them in this particular dispute. Let me appeal to them to reconsider that position. My hon. Friend who has just sat down takes a rather sanguine view of his career as a strike leader. He informed the House that he was always right, but did he always succeed? He used two different sets of phrases. He said he had been more or less successful in his operations. I do not want to go into the precise details of his record, but he said that public opinion had always been against him. That is not my experience.

Mr. J. JONES: Manufactured opinion.

Mr. ASQUITH: It is a very delicate question, as to how far what is called public opinion is spontaneous and how far it is manipulated, but there is such a thing as really genuine public opinion in this matter. It does not always find expression among those who profess to be its authorised organs and exponents, either inside or outside this House, but there is such a thing, and it is all important—I am not speaking now from the point of view of the miners or the mineowners—but it is all important to the parties, upon the one side or upon the other, in any great industrial controversy such as this, the continuance of which is disastrous, so long as it lasts, to the interests of the community at large, that they should have that genuine public opinion upon their side, or, at any rate, that they should not, by resorting to methods which are obnoxious to that opinion, unduly prejudice the fair hearing of their cause. I venture to make a strong appeal to the Miners' Federation to reconsider the position which they have taken up. They will not prejudice their case with the public; on the contrary, the public is very much disposed, and growingly disposed, to look with sympathy on many of the objections which they have raised to the proposals now put forward from the other side, and certainly, with a view to the future organisation of this great industry, to see that the enormous part which they are responsible for, the part which is exposed to real daily hazard and danger, should not fail to be, so far as it can be in terms of money, adequately remune-
rated and insured. I assure them they are very much mistaken if they think public opinion in that respect is predisposed against them. The one thing that can and will alienate public opinion is to adhere to a position, I hope somewhat unadvisedly taken up, and perhaps not altogether even now accurately expressed, which makes, I will not say not only the possibility of a settlement, but the creation of an atmosphere favourable to a settlement, difficult, if not unattainable.
6.0 P.M.
I make that suggestion to the Miners' Federation, and if, as I hope, from a reconsideration of the whole situation, without abandoning one jot or one tittle of the claims and the case which they have put forward on its merits, which is a case to be adjudicated upon after full and free conference and discussion, if necessary by this House, at any rate, by public opinion in the country, without receding in any way, if you like, from the extreme limit of that, they will take into consideration the desirability of coming at the outset to an agreement on this particular matter. Then I should have the utmost, I will not say confidence, but I should have the most sanguine hope that a free and full discussion between them and the employers might lead to a settlement which would approve itself to this House and the nation. I do not think it is necessary, but if it were I would appeal to the Government—if they think the matter is approached in that temper—that they should not interpose anything in the nature of an artificial barrier to a free and full, face to face, and heart to heart discussion between those who are really the two interests primarily concerned. The Government are quite right to take a hand and have got to bear in mind always the interests of the consumer and the State and the community. I am sure it is not their intention or disposition to make such a discussion difficult by the interposition of anything in the nature of technical obstacles or legal or artificial conditions, but to let it be as free and open as they can. At a time like this, when we survey the industrial and economical position of our own country, and, indeed, the whole world, it is nothing short of a crime—I will go further—an act of treason—against the interests, the good name, the future prosperity, and, indeed, the integrity of
this country as a productive and commercial nation, that perhaps the foremost of all our industries, one in which something like a 1,000,000 people are employed, people who carry on the work of production under conditions of difficulty and danger which are almost without a parallel in any other great industry, should be paralysed, riven by internal dissensions, and sterilised for all the purposes of conserving and augmenting our rational wealth. The misery and harm done by the embitterment of our social relations would be indescribable.

Sir COURTENAY WARNER: On many occasions I have heard with gratitude the words of the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down, but never, perhaps, have I been more grateful than for the words of peace he has just spoken. We want peace. I am, perhaps, rather old fashioned, and I am old enough to remember the miners' leaders when some of those who are now leading were not born, and I remember the old fights, and how one sympathised with the miners in the old days. For many years I have sat for a constituency in which the miners form a very large part. My sympathy has always been with the workers, but I am sometimes astonished at the position that they are taking to-day. I cannot understand how they think that the destruction of a mine is a mere question of destroying property. I have never been on the side of the mineowners, and I have never attached to property anything like the value that I attach to human lives and human happiness. But I do look upon it as a crime to destroy a mine, not because it is the destruction of property, but because it is the destruction of the happiness and the prosperity of the miners of the future. You are taking their bread away when you destroy a colliery. [An HON. MEMBER: "You are taking ours now."] That is a point I should like to see the Conference decide. I am not taking your bread away; I never gave the notices or had anything to do with the strike.

Mr. J. JONES: You have put the rents up.

Sir C. WARNER: We have not put the rents up to anything what the houses cost us even in the mining districts. I am not going outside the question to that extent, but I think in the future it will be found
that what we have done has been justified. I want to make a suggestion. It may be old fashioned, and it may be stupid. Why should not the Miners' Federation get into direct touch with the employers without going to the Government? It is quite true the Government of late years has been in the habit of getting the people together. It is quite true in this case the Government has a special interest, because for some time it has subsidised the mines. But I think, if there is no objection, that the Federation should get together with the employers and have a discussion with them without reference to the Government. The Government is tied on one point. Everyone is tied. This House is tied on it, and that is why we cannot spend public money on any particular industry. The nation is quite determined not to have a subsidy for any industry, and there we are tied. Members will not get constituencies to return them if they want to vote for subsidies. This House is the guardian of the taxpayers' purse. The Government is not free to give a grant from public money; it is not theirs to give. It is the people's money, and it cannot do it without the vote of this House, and this House cannot do it without the support of the country. On that point the Government's hands are tied, but everything else is a question between employer and employed. God speed the work of those who try to make peace between them! I would do anything I could, and I am sure hon. and right hon. Members on the other side are equally anxious. We want to see peace. We know that it is the forerunner of prosperity. We know that without it there is nothing but misery and degradation, and I appeal to all who have got some power to help in bringing about peace to make great sacrifices rather than continue the war that is ruining not only the mining industry but the happiness of many families of workmen as well as of employers throughout this country.

Mr. TREVELYAN THOMSON: I want, as a back bencher, to support the earnest appeals made by the right hon. Member for Miles Platting (Mr. Clynes) and the Noble Lord the Member for Hitchin (Lord R. Cecil) that, even at the eleventh hour, the Government may not stand upon any sense of pride in regard to accepting the offer which the Miners' Federation Executive made, and I say
that, although I entirely disagree with the position that the miners have taken up with regard to pumpmen. But, really, what is the alternative? The Noble Lord referred to the present state of things as being like international war, and I submit to the Government that if it were a case of war they would not hesitate to explore every possible avenue to avoid war breaking out in reality. I do, therefore, appeal to them, realising that the nation's welfare is at stake, not in the interest of miners, not in the interest of mineowners, but in the interest of that large body of people who are standing aside for the moment, but who will be brought to ruin and destitution if this thing goes on. What way out is there? No doubt the Government were right in insisting, in the first instance, that the pumpmen should go back. But if it is impossible—and it appears to be—is the nation going to lose anything by allowing the chance of an open conference? Surely the position cannot be worse than it is to-day, and there is the ghost of a chance that it may be infinitely better. Therefore I hope the earnest appeal made from the Front Bench will have weight with the Government. They should realise that the country looks to them to strain every nerve, to stand on no sense of dignity—I am sure they will not—but to seize the opportunity that is offered to them. Let the parties come together. If they do fail, surely the last position is no worse than the first, and there is the glimmer of a chance, there is a last hope, that some settlement may be come to. I do urge upon them that they should not slam the door, that they should accept the offer of the miners to come into open conference without restriction, because otherwise there is sure to be an infinitely worse state of things next week. It may bring peace, and, in any case, the position cannot be worse than that which is certain to follow from the attitude taken up. I admit it seems unreasonable that the miners should stipulate as they do, but if they are unreasonable, is that any reason why the other side should be unreasonable? If the other side feel that they are right in their position, then the stronger side can make greater sacrifices, and take bigger risks, to bring about the peace we all desire.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I moved this Motion in order to give the House an opportunity of discussing the matter. I
do not think we can usefully carry it further at this stage, and I will, therefore, ask leave to withdraw my Motion in order that we may get on with the business of the day.

Mr. G. THORNE: Before the Motion is withdrawn, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he will state what the business will be next week?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Assuming we get the Second Reading of the Tuberculosis Bill to-day, we propose to move Mr. Speaker out of the Chair on the Civil Service Estimates on Monday, and to take Supply—the Education Vote—on Tuesday. I will announce the business for Wednesday and Thursday later, but I think Thursday will also be a Supply day.

Mr. HODGE: Before the question is put, I should like to ask if there is any chance of the Government considering the appeal which has been made to have an open conference between the two sides? All the other trades in the country are suffering very much as a result of the present position. The industry I represent will, in another two months, have exhausted its funds, and, as a matter of fact, find difficulty in borrowing from the bank. Probably in an access of patriotism we put our money in War Loan, and we cannot sell it, except at a loss. I hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer will see whether he cannot help us to the full extent of our investments, so that we can continue to pay our unemployed benefit. May I also, in connection with my appeal for an open conference, say that in the great iron and steel trades of this country neither side ever commits an act of war until, if I may so put it, the resources of civilisation have been exhausted? Notices from the other side are never given until negotiations have failed. In this instance the mine-owners did not place before the miners the wages which they intended paying. They did not, previous to the notices being tendered, let the miners know what money they were to receive. That was an act of war. Surely negotiations ought to have taken place before notices were either given or received There you have reason for the excess of bad spirit, probably, upon both sides.
The act of war came from the mine-owners. Why, then, should there be a condition for negotiations on wages? Let the Government withdraw their condition; otherwise you are loading the dice against the miners, and that appeals to the other workmen in this country, and to myself as an individual, quite outside the merits or demerits of the question of wages You are laying conditions upon the men they ought not to accept. Let them come into conference with the other side without conditions. Unless the Government do that I think it will be found that the rank and file of the trade unionists of this country will sympathise more and more with the miners, considering that the Government are taking sides in this dispute.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: May I repeat my appeal to the House to allow me now to withdraw my Motion. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no!"]

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: The situation is too serious.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: This discussion, I trust, has served a useful purpose, and I really do not think we can carry the matter to a further point. Certainly, the Government cannot add anything effectively to what they have said. I earnestly beg the House to allow me to withdraw my motion, so that we may proceed with -the business that it was intended to take.

Mr. J. ROBERTSON: Am I to take the statement of the Leader of the House to mean that the Government will refuse an open conference?

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: In spite of the appeal of the Leader of the House, I really think that this matter is so serious that, in view of what may happen, I do not think the appeal ought to have been made. I am going to ask to be allowed to trespass a little more upon the Government's time, and, so far as I am concerned, I believe I am right in saying that the rest of the business will be got through all the quicker. After all, we on this side of the House have met the Government pretty consistently in this Parliament in the matter of arranging the business, and I think the Patronage Secretary will admit that. The House rose at six o'clock on Monday. At that time I ventured to make a
slight protest against our early rising in view of the possibilities of this grave crisis. We have had this discussion on this very, very vital question. There are other hon. Members who may possibly be able to point the way out. What may happen? It is quite possible that decisions may be made shortly that will bring out other big industries beside that of the miners. I represent a port, as do some other Members, where we have been suffering acutely from the coal policy of the Government for the last few years. My constituents and myself are intensely interested to see where we stand. They are losing very much. If we can have the opportunity to get out of this impasse I am anxious to see an issue out of it, and I want very briefly to put a suggestion which I have not yet heard to the Government. It is this:
In the first place I do want to put to the House this point of view. It was put partly by my right hon. Friend below me (Mr. Clynes), and it has been put by my hon. Friend the Member for the Hamilton Division of Lanarkshire. There is yet another aspect I wish to put. There is, first of all, the trouble about the safety men which at present is the crux of the difference. Do hon. Members realise this, that the miners at the present moment are in the very weakest position for an industrial dispute? Their funds are depleted, and the coal trade is at the bottom of the way. The trade depression in the whole of the country and the whole of Europe is so serious that the industries that want coal will be putting immediate pressure upon the mineowners to get the dispute settled. The miners are in the very weakest position possible. From their point of view, therefore—I do not know quite—but this matter of the safety men is looked upon as a weapon, and to ask them to put back the safety men before discussion can be entered into when the mineowners are in an admittedly strong position, is scarcely a suggestion that you can expect the miners to accept. I do not want to say anything that will tend to embitter feeling, nor do I wish to be misjudged in what I say; but the mine-owners think they have got to settle this wages question to-day, and they feel that they are in a strong position, and this will make negotiations from the point of view of the miners difficult. I trust I have described the situation temperately and correctly.
The suggestion I wish to put forward; is this: We have got so far to this point, that the Government are demanding that the safety men should be advised to return to work before there can be any further negotiations, and the miners an; saying: "We are prepared to enter upon negotiations, but if we are to accept the condition that the safety men should go back to work, then we must demand as a condition the pool and a national wage." It is here that I desire to point to a bye-path which may lead us out of this impasse. The Government, the mine-owners, and the whole of the public wish the mines preserved from damage. That is one point of view. On the other hand, the miners are saying, and saying with great and bitter earnestness, that they cannot find their way to accept the new decision as to wages; they do not see how they can get any satisfactory conclusion.—I am giving their point of view—without some pooling arrangement and a national wage. That is the problem.
I suggest that the Government should enlarge the conditions of the conference in this way: that they should put forward the idea of an immediate resumption of work of the safety men and of the whole of the other workers f or; 30 days on the basis of status quo ante. My reason is this: We discussed the question of decontrol before the House rose for Easter. I sat out a very long sitting here, and voted against the Government proposals. The Third Reading discussion was carried on almost entirely by hon. Members on these Benches with the House practically empty. From time to time a few Members wandered in, listened for a time, and wandered out again. On this occasion the Benches have been crowded, the feeling intense, and the whole tone and the debates have been good. Hon Members, obviously and naturally extremely interested in this point of view, are looking, I am sure, with anxiety for a settlement. The whole of the Press of the country, the great newspapers, are full of the details of the present position of the mines and the industry of the country; therefore the whole of public attention and the whole of the attention of this House is concentrated upon this problem. If, therefore, we can once get the men back to work, not only the safety men, but the others, we will have a totally different atmosphere for negotiations,
and these could proceed in a situation in which the whole public would be watching intently.
Nine out of every ten men in the street, I venture to say, were taken completely by surprise at this coal stoppage. The man in the street outside the coal-producing areas was really unaware of the seriousness of the situation with which we were faced. In fact, I go so far as to say that many hon. Members of this House who have listened to-day were taken quite unawares at the first results of the Decontrol Bill, which has brought about one of the most menacing industrial situations with which this country has ever been faced. I put forward the suggestion that I do and say that it, or something like it, might be carried out so that negotiations may be proceeded with on an entirely different basis. I go further, and say I do not think the mineowners, judging as one may judge, altogether realised with what they would be faced. I do not think that they quite realised that the men would insist upon the withdrawal, of the safety men. In view of this consideration I do say to the Government that this is a suggestion that might be explored. It has occurred to me during these last few days, and I think it is the duty of any man who has an idea under the circumstances, which may contain the seeds of settlement, to put it forward. I end as 1 began. It is most harmful, and it is not conserving the best interests of the country to close down this discussion now, seeing that hon. Members are prepared to do their best to try to find some way out of this terrible situation.

Mr. J. ROBERTSON: I have no desire to continue what is considered an unprofitable discussion, but I would again like to ask the Leader of the House if he can make a statement as to whether or not it is still the intention of the Government to refuse to go into an open conference that might bring about a settlement until the miners agree to ask the safety men to go back to work? Is that still, after this discussion, the position of the Government?

Sir ROBERT THOMAS: As a miners' representative I should like to associate myself with the hon. Gentleman in making an earnest appeal to the Government to
listen to the practically unanimous demand made by all sections of the House that the Government should take steps to re-open these negotiations. I represent a mining constituency where there is no flooding of the mines, where there is no question of any damage being done. I do think, before it is too late, that an opportunity should be given to the owners and the miners to meet face to face, apart altogether from the Government. [An HON. MEMBER: "They have denied."] Then may I ask that it should be done again. We have had speeches to-day from representatives of the Miners' Federation saying that they are perfectly willing to enter a conference with a clean slate. Why not let the Government retire in the meantime, and withdraw, not only the conditions which they have put forward, but withdraw themselves, and let the miners and the coalowners meet face to face to discuss their differences? [An HON. MEMBER: "There is nothing to stop them."]

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Sir Robert Home): They can do that at any time.

Sir R. THOMAS: I know they can do it at any time, but they require some intermediary to bring them together. Can the Government not make use of its good offices to bring both sides together and leave them alone to discuss their differences? I do earnestly appeal to the Government to give a reply before this Debate is closed to the unanimous request of the House, from all sides, that something should be done to satisfy this House that both parties will be brought together once again to discuss their differences?

Mr. WALLACE: I just wish to reinforce in a very few words the appeals which have been made to the Government from nearly every quarter of the House. I only wish that the negotiations which started this morning, and came to an abortive close, could have been continued in the same tone and spirit which has characterised the Debate here this afternoon. It is most unfortunate that these negotiations here not continued. I listened very carefully to the Prime Minister's statement, and I think he stated, from the point of view of the Government, an absolutely watertight case. In spite of that, however, there is
Obviously a conflict of evidence. We have had the most definite statements made here this afternoon by two members of the Executive that they are perfectly ready to go into conference, and to waive the conditions which were stated by the Prime Minister this afternoon which they previously made conditions precedent to negotiations. If that is the case, why not waive other conditions as well?
There is not a single Member of this House in any quarter but condemns absolutely the madness and wickedness of flooding the mines. I am quite sure the Labour leaders here take that view. I regard it as the highest degree unfortunate that the Executive have identified themselves at any time with a policy of that nature, but the mischief has been already partly done. Although the Government now say that the return of the safety men must be a condition precedent to any further negotiations, let them not underestimate the difficulty of getting these men back. The temper of the miners in various districts is unfortunately rising, and although the Executive might order these safety men back, it might be a most difficult thing to ensure that they did return to their duties. I understood that preliminary negotiations were taking place for the return of the safety men. I believe that the return of these men might have been accomplished before now if my suggestion had been carried out. I appeal to the Government to give some heed to the general expression of opinion in this House. We are in the presence of an unspeakable national calamity if this strike is allowed to go on. The Government have been and still are anxious that no stone should be left unturned which has any possibility of bringing about a settlement. I am sure the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who has been so closely in touch with all these negotiations, is extremely anxious for a settlement, and nobody doubt the sincerity of the Government on this matter. I do feel, however, that as a result of this Debate certain facts have been urged which were not clear to us before, and it is quite impossible to put on one side the offer made by those two miners' representatives who are members of the Executive that they are ready, without conditions, to enter into negotiations.
I do not enter into the merits of the question generally, but the last speaker
said something about the surprise which has arisen in the country regarding this mining crisis. The Prime Minister said yesterday that as far back as November the Government told the mine owners and the miners' leaders to get together and enter into negotiations with regard to future working conditions. That was perfectly well known to the mine owners and leaders of the miners, but I do not think it was known to the men all over the country, and I believe it came as an absolute thunderbolt to a great body of the miners when a fortnight ago they were told that 20, 30, or 40 per cent, was to come off their wages. We have to take these facts into account. We all know that wages must come done, and the miners know it, but we must have negotiations so that the fall, as far as possible, may be gradual, and something like reasonable conditions may once again be reached in that great industry upon which we all depend. I regret extremely that some of the mines in the country have been damaged. I know the miners intimately, and, speaking, of the Scottish miners, I am sure the great majority of them will resent the outrage of damaging the mines which has been committed by the extremists. I am sure the great body of the Scottish miners in no way associate themselves with sabotage of that description.

Mr. KIDD: As the representative of a mining constituency, I am very glad to hear the explanations which have been offered. I argued here the other night that ultimately the only possible basis that can be accepted as a test of what the miners' wage should be is the wage which the industry is able to bear. Before we arrive at that basis it seems to be desirable to have some suggestion made to the miners as to the possibility of what the- industry can afford. The Prime Minister has given us a fair statement of what took place at the conference to-day, but that affords very little hope of a settlement. At the same time we cannot entirely ignore the perfectly sincere and straightforward statements made by the miners' representatives in this House as to the practical effect of the statement made by the Prime Minister, and the construction put upon it is rather a surprise. Undoubtedly they have come here believing there was still some little hope for a conference which would not sacrifice any of the interests involved.
While I keenly appreciate all the difficulties of the Government, and while I certainly shall never be a party to a national wage or a national pooling arrangement, I hope the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Government will be able to contrive some method of waiving the conditions which have been laid down. I hope the situation will not be complicated by any further reference to national pooling, and I trust that the feeling of the miners on this subject will be allayed. I have received a letter from one who cannot be suspected of having undue sympathy with the miners, and who has no interest whatever except as a worthy and patriotic citizen, and he has brought before me vividly the national calamity which is threatened, and he has given me the benefit of his guidance as to how this may be avoided. He is a man in a large way of business, a capitalist if you like, and his suggestion is that in view of the miners' position in the country he hopes that as a result of the conference we may have a settlement along the lines of giving some permanent satisfaction to the miners in the sense that they will accommodate themselves to the change that is coming over the country, and that they should be given some assurance that the drop in wages will be gradual. The right hon. Gentleman realises, as we all must realise, that we have now to pay the price of the folly represented by the aftermath of the great European War.

Mr. WIGNALL: I represent a very important mining constituency. I have not attempted to take part in the Debate previously because there are men who are practical miners in this House, and who have been dealing with the technicalities of the trade, and I have always considered that they were more fitted to deal with these matters than myself. I represent a constituency in the Forest of Dean which includes a very large mining area, and I want to say that I do not believe there is a more loyal body of men or a body more desirous of adopting constitutional methods than the people whom I have the honour to represent. I want to point out that so far as that mining constituency is concerned, it will be one of the hardest hit in the whole of the areas of the United Kingdom. When you come to realise that the amount of reduction in their average wage is £1 15s 3d, you can quite
appreciate the indignation that must be created in their minds when they first heard of the amount that they had to suffer by reduction in wages, a reduction which reduces them below the level of the average laborer in any industry you might name. Naturally there was intense indignation about the whole business.
When the Decontrol Bill was forced upon the House at midnight, and the closure was applied at 3.15 in the morning, there was no statement published as to what reduction would come into force, and no statement had been issued. No information was conveyed to any of these districts, and if the notices to terminate contracts had been posted up every man and boy would have known what was going to be the result. Notice was subsequently given to terminate all contracts on the 31st March, and the men were told that if they resumed their employment on the 1st April, they would have to accept the scheduled list of prices which was published. No statement was made in this House or out of it to the miners that if the pumpmen resumed their occupation they would resume on the old conditions. We never heard of that until yesterday, and if the mineowners were so anxious, as one would naturally expect they would be, to preserve their property, I should have thought that they would have published a statement when the notices were issued, saying that they expected that all the safety men would continue their employment on the old conditions and the old rates until a settlement had been arrived at. Then there would have been reason if the men had withdrawn their labour to complain about it. But no attempt was made at that time to announce that conclusion. It was the closed door against all employés, and not only was the door closed, but it was locked, bolted, and barred, and it so remained until the danger arose and the demand for the resumption of work was brought about.
I was not surprised to hear that the attempt this morning had been a failure. I will tell the House why. When the Prime Minister read the two replies, one from the Miners' Federation and the other from the Mining Association, I noticed that the one from the Miners' Federation said, "Yes, we are quite prepared to meet the mineowners with a Government representative." That was all it contained. But when the letter
from the Mining Association was read, the one signed by Mr. Evan Williams, it was found to clearly and definitely state that they would only meet the miners on the condition that the whole of the pump and enginemen returned to work. That was significant, and I, as an old campaigner, having been in many troubles, thick and thin, during past years, and having been up against propositions of a similar nature in which both the men and the employers have been exasperated, knew what it meant when such a condition is put in the way of negotiation. The moment I saw this condition in the letter I said in my mind, "That settles the whole job; there will be no conference." I am absolutely convinced that the attitude the Government has taken up in insisting on this condition is due to the fact that the mine owners have made it a condition of meeting under any circumstances, either with the Government or without the Government, and the Government felt itself unable to go against the mine-owners' demands. [An HON. MEMBER: "Why?"] It is not for me to enter into an exposition of the whys and wherefores.
An hon. Member asked, "Why not let the two sides come together?" Can anybody tell me why they should not come together? There is nothing in the world to prevent them doing so if they so desire. I do not know that the Government would put any obstacle in their way. It would simply say to them, "Come in, and God bless you." I remember once being engaged in a dispute when we were called into a room and the Government representative promptly locked the door and told us we would remain there until an agreement was come to, and would not be allowed any refreshments or even to go out and get a breath of fresh air. After seven hours of that I won and the other fellow asked me to have dinner with him. We have been very good friends ever since. I am certain the Government would welcome a meeting of both sides, with or without a representative of the Government, and would gladly lock them in if that would help to solve the problem, and not only lock them in, but also provide them with some refreshments as long as progress was being made.
I am sorry to note the silence of the Leader of the House in reference to a direct question of the hon. Member for
one of the Scottish Divisions. I am convinced that that silence does not mean that the Government has finished with the job. It is due rather to the fact that the right hon. Gentleman cannot add anything to what has been already said. The silence fills me with hope that the Government are still considering the position, and will invite both parties to come together unconditionally and fight the dispute out amongst themselves. Some of us have had experience of disputes of this nature. We have known them to go on for days and even weeks, and yet, in the end, we have come to an agreement which seemed hopeless and impossible at the beginning. There is always hope if the opposing sides come together and discuss and consider the question. If the Government will take the view that both sides should come together and discuss it, then whichever party refuses to do so unconditionally and unfettered will be the party which will be responsible for the failure of the negotiations, whether it be the mine-owners' representatives or those of the miners. To-day there has been a series of appeals from every quarter of the House for a meeting. I am not looking with so much alarm upon the position as it exists to-day as upon what it may develop into. It is that which fills me with fear. I am afraid of the consequences in the future. I am not here to dictate a policy to the Miners' Federation. I have always acted on the principle that the man handling the job ought to know best how to do it, without interference from others outside. I am convinced the Miners' Federation realise the importance of both parties coming together unconditionally, and if that is done we may hope for a settlement to be arrived at.

Mr. RENWICK: I join most heartily in everything that has been said with a view to bringing the two sides together. There is one aspect of this question which has been rather overlooked during the Debate. Hon. Members opposite ask us to return to the status quo ante. That, however, would not help the matter at all. The position we are in in the North of England is this, which we cannot keep the collieries going at the present wages. If we started to-morrow we would be unable to keep the men employed. We want to get a reduction in the cost of coal produced. If we get that we believe we can recover many markets, and there
would be the additional result that at the end of the week the men would have more money in their pockets if they worked full time than if they only worked two, three, or four days weekly. That is the point I want hon. Members of the House to consider. The hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Graham) asserted that we wanted to bring the men down to a lower level than in 1914. We want to do nothing of the sort, but it is no good fixing a rate of wages if you cannot employ the men at it. We want to be able to employ the men fully. Thank Heaven! in Northumberland, we have no trouble with regard to keeping the mines going. They are always kept open. The men behave themselves well and have every consideration for the poor animals down in the mines.

Mr. R. RICHARDSON: That is more than the mine owners have.

Mr. RENWICK: It is absolutely hopeless for the miners or any other body of men to think that they are going to get wages in peace time such as they received in war time. I am probably the only member of this House who was actively connected with the coal trade in the time of the Franco-German War. That is carrying one's mind back a long time. Then we had a similar state of affairs, and I was making invoices for coal which before the War stood at 5s. 6d. per ton free on board—I was making them out for my employers at that time at £2 10s. per ton. In 1874 I started business on my own account, believing that I was going to carry on under similar conditions. They were then selling small coal at 20s. per ton, but I had not been long in business on my own account before I was able to buy the coal at 1s. 4d. and 1s. 6d. per ton free on board, and to sell it at German ports at 8s. 6d. per ton c.i.f. after paying 7s. freight. We got over those difficulties and it was not long before we had better times. In the same way we can hope to tide over the present hard times and we will do our very best to work the mines at full time and thus bring about a better state of affairs. But it is absolutely impossible to do it under present conditions and at the present rate of wages.

7.0 P.M.

Mr. A. HENDERSON: I think all sides of the House must regret that we have not been able to maintain the spirit that
actuated the whole of our discussion during the sitting on Tuesday last. When that Debate closed hope had seized hon. Members on all sides that we were in a fair way of steps being taken whereby negotiations between the two sections, with a representative of the Government, would be resumed. I should like if possible to get back to the position that obtained on Tuesday night. What have been the main factors in bringing in the more disturbing elements that unfortunately now exist in connection with this industrial crisis? After Tuesday night the Prime Minister proceeded to invite the two parties to resume negotiations. I have been discussing during a great part of the afternoon, with representatives of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain, the position that they found themselves in on Wednesday morning, when they received the Prime Minister's communication. They took the Prime Minister's invitation at its face value. They claimed then, and they claim now, that there was no condition whatever associated with the invitation. If the parties to whom the invitation was addressed received the communication and interpreted it to mean a clear, plain, straightforward invitation to come, or to allow him to arrange for them to come to meet the coal owners, surely, if a misunderstanding has arisen, it is essential we should find out to what it is due. Now let me take this letter of invitation:
Dear Mr. Hodges,
I would direct the attention of your Executive to the statement which I made in the House of Commons last night on behalf of the Government with regard to the desirability of negotiations being resumed between your Federation and the Mining Association.
There is not the slightest reference to any conditions in his speech. The only reference there is, "with regard to the desirability of negotiations being resumed between your Federation and the Mining Association." What is the second part of the letter?
I desire to repeat that the Government tender the use of its good offices for the purpose of bringing the parties together, and I shall be glad to know whether your Federation is willing to re-open negotiations."—[OFFICIAL BBPOBT, 6th April, 1921; col. 272, Vol. 140.]
Not a word about conditions, not even a word about any conditions that had been laid down in the Prime Minister's speech
the previous evening. There are eminent men in the legal profession on the other side of the House, there are many business men who, in a time of difficulty, if they were extending an invitation to a party to meet and if they wanted conditions, would state clearly what those conditions were in the first communication that was being forwarded. I again repeat that no such condition was even hinted at in the Prime Minister's letter. A similar letter was sent to the Mine Owners' Association. Up to the time that the invitations were issued it seemed that we were in a fair way of getting the parties together and of having negotiations resumed.
Here is the reply of Mr. Frank Hodges, and I want to make it perfectly clear that this reply was made with the only interpretation which I think the letter I have just read is capable of. Mr. Frank Hodges said:
DEAR PBIME MINISTER,
Your letter of even date has been fully considered by my Executive Committee, and I am instructed by them to inform you that they are in a position to meet the coal-owners, with representatives of the Government present, at any time or place convenient to all parties.
My Executive Committee would be glad to hear from you as to when the meeting can be held.
Yours faithfully,
(Signed) FRANK HODGES.
[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th April, 1921; col. 307, Vol. 140.]
No conditions referred to; no conditions even hinted at; no conditions suspected. Had—and this is the point to which I want to call very careful attention in view of the fact that similar letters were sent to the mine owners and to the Miners' Federation—had similar replies been received I believe the negotiations would have been entered upon before now. May I read the, reply from the Chairman of the Mining Association. I will not trouble the House with the whole letter because it merely covers ground about which there is no dispute. The last five lines are of the greatest importance—
But I assume that if the latter agree to meet the owners they will have taken steps which will ensure that the collieries are kept free of water and in a safe condition for a resumption of work."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th April, 1921; col. 307, Vol. 140.]
It was at that point—let there be no mistake about if/, the receipt of that letter—where the first hitch occurred in
Vol. 140
the arrangements for the reopening of negotiations, which I believe the whole House hoped at the close of the Debate on Tuesday night would be resumed almost immediately. Then what took place? On the receipt of this first reply from the Chairman of the Mining Association, the Prime Minister despatched the second letter. That letter has not been published. These letters have been published; we have the benefit of them in the OFFICIAL EEPOBT. In that second letter to Mr. Frank Hodges for the first time the definite condition is laid down, and it is the same condition which has been introduced into the correspondence by the four or five lines I have read from the Chairman of the Mining Association.

Mr. J. JONES: Big business!

Mr. HENDERSON: I do not want to prolong this Debate. I do not think it is very much good merely contenting ourselves with apportioning blame. There is something more important, in a crisis such as we are in and in a greater crisis which we may be in before many days are over, than merely apportioning blame. This House, whatever may have been the intention of individuals, was seized on Tuesday night with an overwhelming and universal desire for the re-opening of negotiations. The Prime Minister took the first step to secure the re-opening of the negotiations, and he did so in letters of a similar nature to the two parties immediately concerned. In those letters there is no single condition or hint of a condition stated. Cannot we get back to the position of the first letter? I asked the Leader of the House earlier on, before the Adjournment had been moved, if it were not possible to get back to the position of this original letter. I was authorized then to say that the miners' executive had tried to convey to the Government, in the conference this morning, that they were willing to enter into a conference without conditions on either side. As I said a moment ago, I have been discussing with the officials of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain. They have called my attention to the first letter which Mr. Hodges received, and may I again say that they consider this letter to be a free and open invitation without conditions of any kind attached, and in that sense, as their own letter clearly shows, they
accepted it. They authorise me again to say to the Government that they are prepared to go back entirely to that position. They admit the statements that were made—they can do no other. They are here. I have a copy with me of the verbatim note that was taken this morning. To that position they adhere—the position contained in this document.
They were faced, in the discussion this morning, with a condition laid down by the chairman of the Mining Association. They were asked to meet the Government this morning to see if that condition could be got over. That condition has not been got over. That condition is still before them. The condition is that, before any negotiations are entered upon, as a preliminary to any negotiations, they are faced with this demand, that they must be prepared to order back a certain number of their workmen. They met that with another fighting condition, and is that a surprise to any hon. Member of this House, or to any Member of the Government, when they are faced with the demand that they should give away what they consider to be an important part of their case? Personally I may not be in sympathy with the first decision regarding the safety men. It does not matter what my opinions are at all. They are out, the decision has been taken, and they are fighting. Whilst the fight goes on, before any conference is entered upon, and as a preliminary to a conference, somebody says to them, and in the first instance, so far as they are concerned, it is said to them with the knowledge that it was contained in the letter of the very people whom they were fighting—I hope that Members of the Government, and especially the Leader of the House, will not lose sight of that fact—" something that the employers say is very serious to our property; something that the men say is very important for our fight." One side says to the other, through the Government: "Before we get you into a conference, and before we will meet you face to face, you must withdraw from this position and throw aside this point." I ask any employer who has ever been through a trade dispute—and some of us on both side of the House have been associated, directly or indirectly, with disputes large and small—has there ever been a case where, when fiche employers and the men have been at
war, it was a condition that the one should throw away many of its fighting weapons, or any of its fighting weapons, before they both sat down face to face?
I want the Members of the Government to see the position in which the men's leaders were placed by this demand, coming to them, as it did, in a second letter and not in the first letter; coming with the knowledge that the point had been so prominently raised, in fact almost laid down as a condition, by the chairman of the opposing association, they say that they met the fighting condition that they were up against this morning with part of their fighting case. They say; "We will go back to the first letter from the Prime Minister with no conditions, and to our first reply to the Prime Minister with no conditions." If the Government is prepared to call a conference—or if they do not care to call a conference in view of what has taken place during to-day and last night—is there any reason why they should not say to the chairman of the Mining Association, " So far as we are concerned, we leave you entirely at liberty to invite Mr. Herbert Smith and Mr. Frank Hodges and his executive to meet you to-morrow morning and to get to business to see if you can do anything." I can quite see that there may be some difficulty about the Government standing in in this business, but there ought to be no difficulty now that control has gone.

An HON. MEMBER: There is none.

Mr. HENDERSON: Can it not be in some way expressed by this House that the two parties should get together on the plain position of an open conference, leaving each side to state its position? I have no hesitation in saying that the position presented in a conference, when you have been in an industrial struggle, is often very different from the same question when it is put to you as a condition of your asking your men's authority to go into that conference. I appeal to the Leader of the House, before this Debate closes, to say frankly whether the Government are prepared to go back to the first letter which the Prime Minister addressed, with no reference to conditions—

Sir R. HORNE: indicated dissent.

Mr. HENDERSON: If the right hon. Gentleman dissents from that, I must ask him to take the letter and make any
better reading of it than I have done. I have read it and have discussed it with others, including the leaders of the miners. It is here, and it speaks for itself; there is no condition even hinted at. I ask whether the Government cannot go back to that position, or whether, now that control is removed, they could not express an opinion that the two parties be asked to come together in the same spirit which was manifested in the House during the Debate on Tuesday, and which characterized many of the employers exceedingly helpful statements. I ask whether it could not be suggested that the parties should come together in that spirit, and see if they cannot get over even this very great difficulty to which so much importance has been attached this afternoon, and which is recorded in the notes of this morning. I have now had handed to me the whole of the letters. I had not seen the second letter of the Miners' Federation, but I think that on examination it will be found that that letter is in strict harmony with the other letters which were addressed to the Prime Minister, and that all along the miners thought that they were being invited to an open conference. In the interests of the entire community, the sooner we get back to the position of the first letter the better. The sooner we get back to that position, the sooner we are likely to reach some point of settlement.

Sir R. HORNE: The Debate has shown the great and natural anxiety on the part of Members of this House that some solution of this very grave difficulty should be arrived at. I need scarcely assure the House that the responsibility which lies upon the shoulders of the Government at the present time is not regarded by any Member of the Government as a light one. On the contrary, we have striven in every way in our power to find a means of settling this trouble. I think that some of the hon. Members immediately opposite me do not entirely realise what the position is, or that, if they do, they are for the moment blinding themselves to its importance. The matter of pumping the mines has been referred to throughout this Debate as if it were an ordinary counter in the play upon industrial disputes between employer and employed. It is nothing of the kind. It has been talked about this afternoon as the miners' natural
weapon in a strike, but it has never been so regarded by the miners of this country. [HON. MEMBERS: "You are putting the case of the coalowners!"] I am not talking of the coalowners at the moment; I am looking at it from the Government point of view. As I have said, this is a weapon which has never been used in any national strike up to now. In the course of the last strike—which is not so long ago that we have forgotten its details—instructions were given by the Miners' Federation that the pumpmen were not to come out, and that the pits of the country should be preserved in operation. One can very well see why that should be so. The pits themselves are not only of the greatest possible importance to the nation—because they provide the means by which all our industries are carried on—but they are the very essence of the livelihood of the miner.
Let us consider the conditions that are caused by mines becoming flooded. It is not merely that the owners' property is so far destroyed, but for long months, it may be, there will be no possibility of working those mines, and the employment of the miner is taken away for the period during which the mines are being brought back into operation. But the situation is even worse than that in many cases. Already there are mines in this country which, by reason of the flooding that has taken place during the last few days, can never become operative again. Is not that a matter of very large importance to the Government of the country? Look at it merely from the point of view of the village communities congregated around those mines. If the pits go out of operation, the whole means of livelihood of those people is gone. Their homes are there, close to the work they used to get, but there is no work for them. What is the position of those communities? Where are they to go for work in the future? The situation which faces them is one of despair, and the task which confronts any Government that has to deal with the matter is one of very great and weighty responsibility. Is it surprising that the Government has been anxious, in connection with these negotiations, that the pumping of the mines should go on at once before anything more was done? Why should it be said against us that, because we are anxious to see that property preserved upon which the livelihood of these communities is dependent, we
are, therefore, siding with the owners? The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Miles Platting (Mr. Clynes) said in the course of his speech that you could not estimate this in terms of money. We are not estimating it in terms of money; we are estimating it in terms of the happiness and contentment of the people of this country, and the possibility of their employment. It is not a new matter. It-was adduced to the House with great ex-plicitness on Tuesday night, not merely by the Prime Minister, but also by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith), and both laid the utmost stress upon a return to the pumping of the mines as an essential and preliminary condition of the resumption of discussion. Not a single voice was raised in the House in protest against those sentiments, and it was assumed by everyone that that was the first preliminary to the resumption of negotiations. My right hon. Friend (Mr. Henderson) has made this afternoon a rather lawyer-like speech upon a particular letter which was sent by the Prime Minister to Mr. Hodges. He does not, however, attribute enough importance to the first phrase in that letter, which says:
I direct your attention to my statement in the House last night.
The statement in the House contains the conditions upon which negotiations are to be resumed. My right hon. Friend suggests that in some way or other the Government have identified themselves with a condition made for the first time by the coalowners of the country. He has only to read the Debate again—

Mr. HENDERSON: indicated dissent

Sir H. HORNE: If that is not his suggestion, I need not deal further with the point.

Mr. HENDERSON: I know that the right hon. Gentleman does not wish to misrepresent me. I had here the speech of the Prime Minister; I knew what it contained; I heard the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley; I heard the suggestion about its being essential. I was dealing with what the Prime Minister had said to those who were not in this House, to those who were not taking part in the Debate, to the Executive of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain. If the right hon. Gentleman will be good enough to read the whole
sentence, and not half of it, he will see that I am justified in raising the point in the interest of the Miners' Executive.

Sir R. HORNE: My right hon. Friend is entitled to raise any point that he likes in the interest of the Miners' Executive, but I am equally entitled to point out what the letter says in specific terms. It was not a matter for anyone to be ignorant of, because, in point of fact, for at least a part of the time during which the Debate was proceeding in this House the chief members of the Miners' Federation were in the precincts of the House—some of them in the Gallery and some of them on the Floor of the House. I do not think there is, any doubt at all as to what were the preliminary conditions for the resumption of negotiations. My right hon. Friend says, " Oh, but if you could only get them together into a conference." Let me assume that nothing had been said at all in any letter with regard to the question of the men going back to the pumps, and let me assume that this morning the representatives of the Miners' Federation had met the representatives of the Mining Association. What would have happened? We know exactly what would have happened, because the Members of the Government this morning who are concerned with this matter met the representatives of the Miners' Federation. I do not assume that the representatives of the Miners' Federation are less well disposed towards the Government than towards the owners. So far as I can discover, they would be more ready to take suggestions from the Government than from the coalowners. How did they meet us upon this point? Obviously, the first question which would have been raised by the coalowners would have been, " Are the pumpmen going back to the mines? " What answer would they have got? I assume that it would have been the same answer which we got, and that was that that was the fighting weapon of the coalminers, and was one which they were not going to discard; and, further, that they would never advise the men to go back to the pumps until there were conceded two fundamental principles—the national pool and the national wage system. How far would negotiations have got upon that basis? The parties would have separated at once, and, so far from any good being achieved, we should have had
a position of still greater difficulty than that with which we are faced now.
I have had now a little experience of industrial negotiation, and one thing which I can say with the greatest possible confidence, and which I am sure will be agreed to by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, is that there is nothing so bad for the purpose of achieving a settlement as abortive negotiations. In fact, I think it is an axiom under the conditions of an industrial dispute that you should never try prematurely to get the parties together until you see some sort of foundation upon which they are going to agree. It was perfectly obvious from the conversation we had with the representatives of the Miners' Federation this morning that there was no basis for common agreement at all at that stage. They were asserting the two very principles which the coalowners so far had set their faces against and one of which at least would have involved the recognition of a principle which we as a Government certainly cannot give effect to, namely, that of imposing upon the coal industry a system of pooling profits. If these are the conditions of the moment, what benefit are we going to get by bringing the two parties together under these circumstances? We should like to get some common point of view on which this matter can be settled, but we are not going to take action which is doomed to disaster from the beginning.
I would make the same appeal to the representatives of the miners as was made by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Asquith). He begged them to abandon the conditions they have put before the Government this morning. He begged them to realise the position in which they were putting themselves towards the rest of the country by allowing this great asset of the nation's prosperity to go to rack and ruin while negotiations were going on. If these negotiations were going to last any time at all, look at the wreckage which in the meantime is occurring to the mines. I would beg the miners to take thought of what is happening and to abandon a course which they have never before thought of adopting, and to have some regard for the property which hitherto, even in times of the greatest industrial stress, they have always observed. If they will do that, I am certain they will not only put
themselves in a better attitude towards the country, but they will create an atmosphere 'which in negotiations will be far more favourable to a settlement. I accordingly beg those on the opposite Benches, who have influence with the miners, to urge upon them these counsels. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Thomas) and the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Clynes) have both declared that they themselves do not agree with the policy which has been adopted by the miners in this respect, and it was hinted in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Henderson) that he is of the same opinion. We are asked to do -everything in our power to try to get a settlement. I ask these three right hon. Gentlemen, with the great influence they possess in the labour world, to do their best to get a settlement, and there is no single thing which would contribute so much to a settlement as if they could induce the Miners' Federation to abandon the course they have taken of jeopardising the industries of the country, and induce them to send back once more the pumpmen to the pits, where necessary, for their preservation.

Mr. J. H. THOMAS: I am sure the right hon. Gentleman did not intend to assume that either of us on these Benches was not anxious for a settlement and had not been for days doing all we could to bring about a settlement. I am sure he would be the first to realise that it is because we are anxious for a settlement that we are anxious to remove any misunderstanding. I would ask the House to observe the significance of the right hon. Gentleman's statement. I have already publicly expressed my view, and I do not retract a word of it, that I do not believe in the destruction of property. I do not believe it does good. The right hon. Gentleman said this is a new weapon of the Miners' Federation that they have never used before. I would ask the House to realise what that statement means, because the House gathers from it—and if that is not the implication of it there is no value in it—that the Miners' Federation in this fight are for the first time using a new weapon against the employers. That is not true. Never in the experience of the mining industry M'hen the miners were given notice, when a lock-out or whatever you like to call it took place, were the pumpmen given notice. If you are-going to charge the
miners with introducing a new weapon, we are entitled to ask if the circumstances were analogous to that in the past. These notices were given to the men for the first time and they implied a reduction in some cases of 50 per cent. How can you fail to understand the feeling of the pumpmen themselves when their employer says to them, " On and after Monday next, you will be expected to work for a reduction of 50 per cent."? How can you expect them to do other than to refuse to work on those conditions

Sir R. HORNE: What about the cases in which full wages were offered?

Mr. THOMAS: Does not that give the whole case away? If that implies anything, it means that the right hon. Gentleman agrees with the other men, where full wages were not given, accepting the notice.

Sir R. HORNE: No, the right hon. Gentleman is not entitled to give that interpretation at all. I am trying to meet his argument.

Mr. THOMAS: I have publicly expressed my view. I do not shrink from it at all. It is no good holding opinions and merely trying to hide them. My view is clear on that point. I am dealing with the statement that the Miners' Federation are introducing a new weapon, and I say it is not true because never before were the pumpmen given notice. The right hon. Gentleman follows it up by saying, " What about those who were offered full wages?" I reply by saying that the implication underlying that interruption is that those who were not offered full wages were at least entitled not to go to work. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] The right hon. Gentleman has made his statement, and I have made mine. I come back and say, " Yes, we accept the invitation that he has given to do all we can to bring about negotiations," but we are entitled also to say to the Government, " You also must not be unmindful of your responsibility." I would ask the House to judge of the facts emphasised by the right hon. Gentleman. A letter was sent by the Prime Minister to two parties. Two replies came to that one letter, one unconditional and the other conditional. Does the House observe the importance of the fact that the second letter was
sent in order to explain the first? All these things, to put it no higher, have led to confusion. No hon. Member, whatever his views may be, desires this dispute to continue, or to be prolonged, or to be widened, merely on misunderstanding. I am afraid the right hon. Gentleman makes a debating point. He has not, after, all, had so many years of negotiation as some of us have, and we who have been in disputes before have known periods where you are apparently as wide apart as the poles. I could give scores of illustrations where there has been no apparent hope of coming together, but when we have come round the table, there is always a desire not to break away. I believe there would still be this desire. I would put this to the Leader of the House for the Prime Minister. Up to now he has met one side. I frankly admit that it was good tactics on his part, because it showed a real anxiety to remove, if possible, a misunderstanding on one side. But the fact remains that he has met one side, and he has said to the one side, " This is a barrier to real negotiation," and everyone will admit that, whilst that barrier continues, not only this question cannot be discussed, but the bigger question which will take a much longer time.
What is the real difficulty in summoning both sides, because the Government in this matter will have to assume responsibility. What is the difficulty, then, in bringing both sides together, and making this very question a condition as the first negotiation? At the moment the Government say, before real negotiations can take place this condition must be complied with, to which the Miners' Federation answer: " We interpreted your letter as being free from any condition." You say on the other hand: "You were wrong in so interpreting it." That is the real point of difference. I am genuinely anxious to get them together. Instead of going back over the old ground, let the Government invite both parties, and make that a condition when they are in negotiation. Some people may. think that there is not much advantage in it. People who do not know what negotiations are may shake their heads, but I repeat that there is often settlement made by bringing both parties together, and I urge the Government to consider it in that spirit. Let me conclude by
urging the House in judging the case to keep clearly in mind that, however much they may deprecate this weapon that is now used, it is a weapon rbhat was never used before because the employers have never previously acted in a manner similar to their action on this occasion. Whatever difference of opinion there may be I conclude by expressing the same hope that I expressed two nights ago, that nothing in this Debate will widen the breach, but that something may emerge that will bring both parties together.

Major HAMILTON: I rise to take part in this Debate with great diffidence but with the memory that I have worked down a colliery, and that not many Unionist Members have done that. I know something of the conditions underground, and I know something of the conditions of the men who work the pumps, for I have installed the pumps myself, and worked them. The right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken has enormous influence, which I feel sure he will use in the interests of his country, but the speech that he has delivered is not, in my opinion, very helpful. He has emphasised the fact this/t the owners gave a general formal notice to all their wage-earning employes to terminate or the day that control ended, and he knows just as well as I do that some of the more igno rant workmen may think that that notice meant dismissal.

Mr. THOMAS: The hon. Member appeals to me, and I will answer him.

Major HAMILTON: Let me finish my point. Surely the right hon. Gentleman realises that some of the more ignorant men—[HON. MEMBERS: " Do not use that phrase ! "]—may take it as a notice of dismissal, but he knows as well as I do that it was never intended as a notice of dismissal. It has been made perfectly clear in this House and outside that it was a formal notice, so that they could open wage negotiations when Government control came to an end. The right hon. Gentleman should not emphasise that point to mislead men who do not understand it as he does.

Mr. THOMAS: They offered 50 per cent, reduction.

Major HAMILTON: I am referring to the right hon. Gentleman's point about the formal notice. That notice about terminating their employment was purely
formal in order that they could open discussion about wages. [HON. MEMBERS: " Oh, oh."] I am trying to speak helpfully, as I believe my right hon. Friend did. The second point in his speech was about the Prime Minister's letters. The Prime Minister addressed identically the same letter to the employers and to the Miners' Federation. Exactly the same words were used in the two letters. The Masters' Federation did not overlook the opening paragraph of the Prime Minister's letter; but in their reply they drew special attention to that paragraph, and said—the reply was read in the House by the Prime Minister yesterday, and the hon. Member for the Ogmore Division (Mr. Hartshorn) apparently did not notice this point: " We presume that the meeting will be in accordance with the conditions laid down in your speech in the House of Commons to which you have drawn our attention, namely that the safety men shall return to maintain the collieries." The real difficulty at this moment is that the Miners' Federation have definitely said, " We cannot order the safety men to go back into the collieries to maintain them." The owners say, " We cannot discuss the matter until our collieries are safe in the national interests."
The crisis with which we are faced is a crisis which will shake our country to its very foundations, and it is the duty of this House and every man in this House to try to find some way out, and I am going to be bold enough tD offer a suggestion. I do not suggest that it will be of much help; but, at any rate, it is a suggestion. The Executive of the Miners' Federation have ordered the safety men to come out from the collieries, and as a result of that, where managers and officials are helping to save the property of the mines, the men who have come out under the orders of the Federation, believing in them and supporting them loyally, are actually assaulting the managers and others and preventing them from working the pumps and firing the boilers. Could not the Federation say, " We have ordered the men to come out. We will withdraw the order and allow the safety men, if they wish, to volunteer to go back to their duties and to maintain the mines "? That would be a method of saving the face of the Federation. They have committed themselves some-
what. They have laid down definitely their orders. Could not they get round that in the national interest by saying that they will withdraw their orders to the safety men, that they can go back if they wish at the old rate of pay, that any manager or volunteer who can bit found to save this property in the national interests shall be allowed to go into the pit in order to save them, and that they will issue a manifesto saying that there shall be no interference with these men in their work of saving the livelihood of these villages, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer pointed out, and in saving this great national asset?
I appeal to the miners' leaders to consider this as a way out of the difficulty, that they should make this offer to allow voluntary work in the mines to save this great national asset in the interests of the nation and to prevent the terrible crisis with which we are faced. I hope that this will be made in a good spirit, supported by the Executive issuing a manifesto that there shall be no interference with safety men or volunteers and engineers or any other people who can go down and help to save the mines. I know that you cannot get volunteers to do a great deal of the work about a pit, but you can get volunteers to work the pumps and to do a good deal of other work as well. If the Federation will say that it is not their wish that there should be any interference with such men, but that they should be allowed to work freely and be given such support as can be given, I believe that the owners would be willing to meet the Federation, and the whole problem of national wages and district wages could be threshed out. The national property, the mines, which are the livelihood of so many millions of people, could be saved, the discussion could proceed and probably a solution would be found.

Mr. GEORGE ROBERTS: No one can accuse me of representing the mineowners, nor can it be said that I am unfriendly towards the miners; but there are two points I should like to make. I do not purpose entering into the merits of the dispute. I have had considerable experience of these disputes, and having been an official of the Labour party, and very intimately connected with considerations of miners' questions, I am
aware of the difficulties and the complexities thereof. Therefore, I am not presuming to offer advice thereon; but there are two considerations which ought to be remembered. I remember in the course of previous disputes that there have been within the Miners' Federation sections who have favoured this form of sabotage; who have favoured the withdrawal of the pumpmen in order that the mines might be destroyed or that they would be threatened with destruction, in order to exercise keener pressure upon the owners to come to a settlement. That has been the struggle waged within the Miners' Federation and throughout the Labour movement for some years past. Hitherto, the better-minded and more far-seeing of the Miners' Federation have been able to keep these elements in restraint; and it is true to say that previously whenever that policy has been advocated inside the Federation this form of sabotage has not received the sanction of the leaders of the Labour movement. The point which really concerns me is that it is a recrudescence of a struggle which has been going on in the Labour movement for a long time, and unless the leaders of the Labour movement who believe in constitutional action and who desire, as I know they desire, the maintenance of industrial peace are able on this occasion to exercise restraint on that section, the whole of the Labour movement is changed, trades unionism assumes new functions and I believe the Labour movement, as we have understood it, is inevitably driven towards destruction; and not only the destruction of a party, but the detriment of the nation as a whole. Therefore, if I can say a word, it would be a word of encouragement to those of my friends in the Labour party in this House who are endeavouring to combat this element, it is to have courage in this emergency, because when they are called upon to assume the government, as they will in due course, it may be that this policy, if it succeeds on this occasion, will hamper them and make it impossible for them to carry out their industrial undertakings.
8.0 P.M.
I am alarmed in the second place because there is to-day an inclination to assume that this is a question alone for the mineowners and the working miners. It is not exclusively a question for these two sections, or even for the Government in conjunction with them. The main-
tenance of the mines, the nation's most valuable asset, is a matter of vital concern to the humblest citizen in the land. If it be that many mines are allowed to go to destruction, and if we restrict the quantity of coal that will be available when peace is restored, we are affecting most adversely our foreign trade, because we shall have less wealth to exchange for the things we must purchase. We found during the period of food control that a miners' strike or the threat of a miners' strike was the most sensitive thing that could occur, because it had immediately an adverse effect on the cost of living, on the cost of everything that we had to purchase in order to supply our people with the means of life. I know that my friends in the Labour party who stand for constitutionalism deserve, and should have, every encouragement thai; we can give to them, and I say in their own interests, unless they are able to withstand the policy to which I have referred, it must result to the detriment of their party. On the other hand, the main consideration is that of the well-being of our people as a whole, and I do very sincerely hope that wiser counsels will prevail. I know that it is little use my offering to be of any assistance. [HON. MEMBERS: " Hear, hear! "] I think I am just as competent as others to render assistance in an emergency of this character. I have served on previous occasions, and at least I know something of the difficulties of the miners' leaders and the complexities of the problem with which they have to deal. I know these are not very popular statements to make. Nevertheless I feel these two things should be stated, and having stated them I can satisfy myself with the belief that I have said what is best in the interests of organised labour and of the community as a whole.

Mr. LAWSON: I take this opportunity of saying without the slightest hesitation that if I were at a colliery at the present moment I should not only use my influence against any interference, but I should not mince words with men who would lead the miners to pass from the passive to the aggressive in these matters. I have on every occasion tried to face, in small disputes as well as large, the situation in a practical way, and I have learned from experience that the man who counsels others to pass, to physical force is usually the last person there to suffer
the effects when the physical force begins. Having said so much, may I say further that I came to the House expecting to hear counsels of moderation? I would risk almost anything to counsel moderation, even to the point of sacrifice, but after I heard the first speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and more so after hearing his speech to-night, I feel that the effect and the influence of that representative of the Government will be to increase the fighting force throughout the Federation area, so that he will make it more and more difficult for anything to be done along the lines of moderation. I was amazed at his attitude. I expected to hear the Government's point of view placed before us. But the speech he made was not a mere putting of the Government point of view; it was an outright defence of the position taken up by the coalowners. When he was dealing with the condition of the coalowners as to the district ar^ rangements, and its effect on the country at large, he pointed out that in one case at least it would mean an increase; and we had to interject to remind him that the coalowners had not stood by the arrangement made here in London. Then he referred to Nottinghamshire and Durham. The right hon. Gentleman knew very well, and refrained deliberately from telling the House, that, whereas as regards a great county like Durham principles were laid down which would have had the effect of giving us 216 per cent, upon the "79 basis, yet when they met our men in Newcastle they told them that percentage had been reduced to 155 per cent. When asked the reason they said that when they had been prepared to accept the February prices and to stand the loss, the March prices were so rushing down that they must protect themselves against the possible great fall that was coming. The right hon. Gentleman knew that well, yet he went on to make a defence of the district method of settlement.
What can you expect of men when we hear a Government representative putting what is supposed to be the community's view and boldly declaring the coalowners' view? I have sat here during the past two or three days as a man who would almost take any course or sacrifice anything in the interests of the well-being of this nation, because I know sufficient about the make-up of human society to know
that this great country has brought to fruition democratic government. Yet, when I heard the case put in this fashion during stage after stage of the Debate, I felt that the right hon. Gentleman was more concerned about using this situation for party purposes than about using it for community purposes. I may be wrong, but the force of the facts, even though I do not want to accept them, compels the conclusion that the less the right hon. Gentleman has to do with this matter, the better it will be for the community and the country at large. ' Take the position created by the withdrawal of the men from the pumps. It is no use anyone saying that this is a new method introduced by the Miners' Federation. I do not remember any period when the miners got notices from the coalowners before. It has been the miners who have given notices to the coalowners, and when they have given notices no question has been raised about these men. The miners got the notices on this occasion. An hon. Member on the other side has said that " the miner thinks it is a notice of dismissal;" Well, he got 14 days' notice to clear out, and that means that he has to clear out, and the men accepted the coalowners at their word. It appeared to me that even then it would have been possible to deal with this matter. I want to know why the Government has really accepted the coalowners' position? I venture to say that if on Monday the coalowners and the miners had got together this question would have been made easier of settlement. But it has been raised from one stage to ianother, and when the Government accepted the coal-owners' position it made a mountain out of what had been a molehill, and it is going to make the position more and more difficult as the days go by.
I cannot for the life of me see why the Government should not accept the offer of a free and unconditional meeting between the owners and miners. The right hon. Gentleman says that while this is going on the mines are being damaged, and that it means many of them will have to be abandoned. That may be true, but I wish the right hon. Gentleman had been concerned about that kind of thing before. I have been concerned about it, because in the constituency which I represent there was a pit where sufficient men worked to bring nearly £2,000 a week
into the village. It was a good mine; in fact, if it were in Somersetshire, or some of the other districts mentioned as being possibly districts where there would be deficits, it would be one of the best kind of mines. Yet it has been 'closed. There has never been any reference to the men, or any concern for them, in connection with it. When I asked the Secretary for Mines to go into the matter I think the coalowners practically told him to mind his own business. The people in that village are now face to face either with starvation or else with the prospect of finding some other means of livelihood, while, apart from the present dispute, good seams have been standing idle without any reasonable cause being given. The Miners' Federation have laid down a certain principle which seems to me a very reasonable one. It is, that they will accept a national wages board and a national pool, even though it means a reduction. Take the case of the pit I have mentioned. It might be that the company was paying. Yet in that instance there was no regard for the people who were working at the colliery; they simply had to accept the inevitable.
As far as the aggressive side of dealing with the pumps is concerned, my influence shall be against any attack on or interference with people who are doing that work. But I want to say just as emphatically that I believe the influence of the right hon. Gentleman has been used deliberately for party purposes, and that the less he has to do in this matter the better. One of my hon. Friends has used the case of two different parties being locked into a room, and told that they had to stop there until they settled their disputes. If the Government method of dealing with this matter in the future is not an improvement upon what we have experienced in the past, the virtue of that method would lie in the Government being locked out of the room. One of the right hon. Gentlemen opposite, who has taught some of us at least the way to deal with practical affairs, knows very well from his experience as a judge in our arbitration courts how often we went in there with what we thought was a great case on some one point, and when we got face to face the matter became dwarfed and insignificant as compared with what we thought it was before. That, I think, would be the case with this matter of dealing with the pumps,
important as it seems at the present time. Every day we go on the matter is growing worse. This apparently insuperable barrier will grow higher as time goes on. I hope the Government will use every influence to accept the unconditional proposal laid down in order that the matter may be ended instead of going from bad to worse and damaging, not only the miners, but the coalowners and the nation and the Empire as a whole.

Question, " That this House do now adjourn," put, and negatived.

BILL PRESENTED.

DISEASES OF ANIMALS ACT (1910) AMENDMENT BILL,

"to amend the Diseases of Animals Act, 1910, in respect of the exportation and shipment of horses," presented by Colonel BUKN; supported by Sir Frederick Ban-bury, Sir Thomas Bennett, Sir John Butcher, Mr. Lindsay, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur Murray, Mr. Newbould, Mr. Leslie Scott, Mr. Spoor, and Major Mackenzie Wood; to be read a Second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 61.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (SUPPLY).

Ordered, " That the Proceedings on the Public Health (Tuberculosis) Bill and the Housing Bill have precedence this day of the business of Supply."—[Colonel Leslie Wilson.]

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

METROPOLITAN WATER BOARD (CHARGES) BILL. (By Order.)

It being a Quarter past Eight of the Clock, and there being Private Business set down by direction of the Chairman of Ways and Means, under Standing Order, No. 8, further proceeding was postponed, without Question put.

Order for Second Reading read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, " That the Bill be now read a Second time."

Sir W. PEARCE: I beg to move, to leave out the word " now," and at the end of the Question to add the words " upon this day six months."
I would like to ask for guidance as to four Bills on the Paper—the Metropolitan Water Board (Charges) Bill, the Thames Conservancy Bill, the Lee Conservancy Bill, and the Metropolitan Water Board (Various Po'wers) Bill. The first three are intimately concerned with the Debate which we are now starting, and as all three are of some importance it may be of advantage if discussion be permitted on the three Bills at the same time.

Mr. SPEAKER: I think that there is no objection to that course. The circumstances dealt with in each are very much the same. The fourth Bill deals with different topics, and, therefore, will have to-stand on its own basis.

Sir W. PEARCE: I am very much obliged for your ruling. I hope that the House will hesitate before giving a, Second Reading to these three Bills. Yesterday the London Members were-asked to receive a Deputation from the Metropolitan Water Board, the London County Council, the City, and the Metropolitan Boroughs, and it was pointed out with great force that these Bills are the result of an inquiry by the Rates Advisory Committee of the Ministry of Transport, at which these bodies were not heard, and they feel it a distinct grievance that on an issue of this magnitude they had not an opportunity of stating their own case. Taking the Thames Conservancy Bill, they propose to charge-London, instead of a contribution of £45,000 a year, £112,500. The Thames Conservancy I understand have budgetted for next year that the problematical expense is £130,000. They ask the Metropolitan. Water Board to contribute £112,500. The case of the Lee Conservancy is not quite so startling, but there is a large increase of from £8,000 to £20,000. It really means, especially in the case of the Thames Conservancy, that the Metropolis of London, the London County Council, and the London boroughs are asked to assume almost the whole of the total: expenditure of this bod.y. I was present at the deputation, and felt that there was great force in the contention of these bodies that they had not been heard, and the suggestion that the House of Commons ought not to pass a. Bill of this description is one which it was difficult to resist. They suggested that inquiry by the Rates Advisory Committee was not a sufficient inquiry, that there ought to be a public inquiry, possibly
by a Select Committee of this House, to examine the whole position before charges of such vital importance to the Metropolis were allowed to be introduced into this Bill.
No sooner had this deputation finished than the London Members received a deputation from the London Chamber of Commerce and the London manufacturers, and they pointed out with regard to the Metropolitan Water Board Bill that, over the charges that would result from an inquiry by the Ministry of Health, they have had no opportunity of stating their case. The Bill was really a relief of ratepayers at the expense of consumers, and did not get rid of the opportunity to make a deficiency rate. Here, again, is a question of supreme importance to the London Chamber of Commerce and the manufacturers and industrial London. They have never been heard by the Ministry of Health, and they agreed also that this House ought not to pass Bills of this description when the parties who were so intimately concerned as the London Chamber of Commerce and the London manufactory had no opportunity of stating their case. The result was that all these deputations ask the House of Commons not to pass the Second Reading of these Bills, but to put them all back one year in order to allow for a full inquiry into the conditions and factors which govern these Bills.
I have been in this House a good while, and had a considerable share in such matters, and I remember that there was a stiff fight in 1911 over the charges of the Metropolitan Water Board. The position with regard to consumers and London generally is most disappointing. In 1902, when the Metropolitan Water Board was established, they were absolved for twenty years from all obligation to provide a sinking fund, and the Local Government Board of that day imagined that the conditions were so favourable that at the end of twenty years they would be able to provide for a sinking fund without any further charge to the consumer. To-day we find" that when a sinking fund comes into being next year there will be an extra charge which the Metropolitan Water Board will have to meet. Instead of being in a position to provide for this new charge on the undertaking there is already a
deficiency of £530,000 on last year's working which is covered by a deficiency rate. In 1911, when there was a stiff fight in this House, the charge which the Metropolitan Water Board secured was 5d. on the rateable value, and from 6d. to lid. per 1,000 gallons on industrial water. The Bill to-day proposes to give them permission to raise the percentage on rateable value from 5 to 10 per cent., and raise the charge on industrial water per 1,000 gallons from 6d. and lid. to 2s., and at the same time they ask the House of Commons still to give them the power to make a deficiency rate on the whole of London.
There has been certain negotiations which have led to serious alarm in industrial and commercial circles in London. In the old Bill the large consumers were recognised and given certain concessions. In 1911 it was recognised that the lower expenditure on industrial water for distribution, collection and the avoidance of waste, entitled industrial water to certain concessions, but to-day the whole of that is ignored, and it is pleaded by the chairman of the Metropolitan Water Board that they are not in a position to encourage industry. He even went so far as to say that they might be obliged to discourage it. They not only take powers to charge as much as 2s., but they ignore any special advantages for the consumption of large quantities. Under the old Bill in the case of industrial water the advantages in connection with distribution, collection and the avoidance of waste were recognised, and the more water was consumed by the industrial consumer the less was he charged. To-day they go on the opposite tack. They say, " We are not in a condition to encourage the industrial use of water, and although it may be cheaper to us to supply large quantities in this way, we do not intend to recognise that fact, and therefore we will make no difference in the charge, whatever may be the quantity consumed." One large manufacturer who appeared before the London Deputation yesterday told the London members that if the charges were enforced up to the maximum it would mean a charge on his undertaking of £20,000 a year. If that sort of policy and atmosphere is created, it means a discouragement of industrial operations within the radius of the Board. That seems to be the policy of the Bill. It
makes no recognition of the fact that without large industries a big population like that of the Metropolis cannot exist. It is forgotten that London is probably the largest manufacturing city in the world. The Bill's promoters give the industrial consumer no recognition. They go further, and regard him almost as a nuisance, and they say that in the interests of the general public it may be necessary to discourage him.
As to the River Lea Conservancy, it is proposed to treble the dues on the Lime-house Cut, and to abolish free water in another part of the navigation although manufacturers in that district have paid an enhanced price for their land because it carried the right to free water. That fact it is proposed to ignore. A large manufacturer came to me yesterday and told me that the dues of his company would be increased by about £500. For these and other reasons I regard with misgiving the proposal that the Bills should go to a Joint Committee of the two Houses. The details I have described may seem small compared with the issues we have been discussing to-day, but they are very important to the people concerned. If the three Bills go before a Joint Committee the details lose their importance. Such a procedure would be all in favour of the promoters and against the objectors. Moreover, unless a very strict time schedule was accepted by the, Joint Committee there would be no saving of expense. What I feel most strongly about is this: This is a time of most acute industrial depression. I have spent a long life in business enterprises, but I have never known times so difficult as those of to-day or a future so uncertain. So much is that so that every industry begins to think whether it will be able to weather the storm. The three Bills will do two things. They will raise the dues on the goods that are brought to the factories, and they will raise the cost of industrial water to a very sensible degree. There is a very large and important increase made in the standing charges of every business in the area covered by the Bill. I plead, therefore, that each of the Bills should be deferred for one year, and that in the meantime there should be a special inquiry into the conditions.

Mr. LYLE: I beg to second the Amendment.
I am particularly concerned with the Metropolitan Water Board (Charges)
Bill. There are two particular reasons why the Metropolitan Water Board Bill should not be given a Second Reading. There are great dangers in sending the Bill to a Joint Committee. There is great danger on an evening such as this that many Members who have not heard the Debate will come into the House and, depending on the attitude of the Government, will support a Second Reading. The first reason for my opposition to the Bill has reference to the rate of payment by meter users. I am speaking more or less from the point of view of the large users of water, the manufacturers in London. Those who are taking water by meter are now paying on a graduated scale running from about 6⅛d. to 11d. per thousand gallons, according to the quantity taken. Taking the Board's own figures, the average cost of the whole water supply works out at about 8½d. They now propose to abolish this scale and to substitute for that a flat rate up to 2s. It has been argued—and it was argued yesterday upstairs before the London Members—that the manufacturers of London were trying to get water at below the cost of production, and no doubt that argument will be advanced to-night, but I think that one could show from the Board's own figures that in the past meter users were actually paying 20 per cent, more than the domestic users, and, taking the Board's own figures again, in 1919 the meter users paid 8.47d. and the domestic users 6.97d. The average cost of water supplied for 10 years was 8.39d., so it will be seen that the meter users were not getting their water below cost price, but were, in fact, paying the full cost, whereas the loss on the domestic supply was 1½d. per 1,000 gallons. I think that disposes once and for all of the statement that the manufacturers and large users of water supplied by meter were endeavouring to get water below cost, and if there was anything in the argument at all, it was on the other side. We argue that, instead of having paid more than the domestic user, the manufacturer should actually have paid less, because the cost of supplying water on a big scale must necessarily be less than the cost of supplying a great many small users.
Under this Bill the Metropolitan Water Board are seeking to double the domestic charge and to treble the meter charge. Hon. Members ought fully to grasp the significance of trebling the cost to the
meter users. This is no surprise to us who know something of this Board's methods, for it coincides with the avowed policy of the Board. There was a deputation from the London manufacturers which met the Metropolitan Water Board, and they were told by the chairman, in meeting assembled and in no uncertain terms, that it was for the trade to go where water was.

Major MALONE: That is not the policy of the Board.

Mr. LYLE: That was the statement, and I challenge its contradiction. It was said it was for the trade to go where water was and that the job of the Metropolitan Water Board was the job of sup plying domestic needs. If that is the true state of affairs, there will be very little need for any domestic supply. I think the House should mark well this very rash statement which was made by the Chairman of the Water Board. Was there ever a more callous, cynical, and irresponsible statement made than that? This powerful and autocratic Board, who hold a monopoly of the supply of this commodity, so little realise their responsibility in this matter that they calmly say they care nothing for the trade of London. They no doubt see there are difficulties in the future in the way of getting an increased water supply, but, after all, it is their job to find the water that is necessary for the trade of London and to supply it, and it is not the job of the large manufacturers. It will be argued, no doubt, that their expenses have increased and that they are entitled to ask for increased charges for their water, and as far as the London manufacturers are concerned they are quite prepared to pay more and to be reasonable. They are reasonable people, but they think the charges proposed to be made are not reasonable at all. No doubt it will be put forward that, although they take powers to increase the charges to the meter users up to 2s. per thousand gallons—and it has been so argued—they do not intend to put these powers into force. Also, it is only fair to say that in the Bill it is expressly laid down that they have to show that their charges are such as would justify it; but, having said that, I think the House will see very clearly that it would be a very dangerous principle
merely to say that, because they do not propose in the meantime to charge 2s., and because they have to show that their costs justify 2s. before it can be charged, they should be allowed to go up to any such figure. We have had experience in the past of Government control, when cost did not very much matter, and we know very well how easy it would be in a very short space of time, with lax management and so on, to show that their charges were up to 2s.
There is another point that I wish to go into, and that is the costs. They say that their costs have gone up, and no doubt they have, but on their own showing the cost in 1920 was 9½d. per thousand gallons. I understand the statement will be made that the cost is now lid.; but why, in the name of goodness, should they ask for 2s. if the cost, even on their own showing, is only 11d. now? Surely we are now at the highest possible peak, and almost certainly prices will be reduced. It is not likely that the prices will go higher than lid., and therefore I think it is clear that a case is made out for not allowing such a charge as 2s. to be put into the Bill. We who speak for the large users of water ask for the retention of the scale. We think it is entirely fair that we should have a scale. The scale was expressly inserted in the last Bill by both Houses of Parliament, and I think it is an ordinary business principle that a large user and a large buyer should have the benefit of the cheaper rate. It is not that we ask for special facilities for getting something at a less price than a smaller man. It is simply the ordinary business principle we ask for, that when we buy in big quantities we should get the advantage of that opportunity to buy. It will no doubt be argued that the Departmental Committee which was set up by the Ministry of Health was against the scale, but when that Departmental Committee was set up nobody knew much about it at the time. The manufacturers and large users were not heard at all.
My second point in objecting to this Bill, apart from those charges, is the provision under which the Board can limit the user to 500,000 gallons per day. That limitation was no doubt an ample one in the old days, but it is entirely obsolete to-day. There are many users up and down the Eiver Thames who need far more than that quantity, and I do not think any such limitation should be put
in. Gasworks, for instance, take millions of gallons per day, and many users need far more than 500,000 gallons. If such a clause were inserted it would mean that a large amount of the gas supply of London would be cut off. No doubt it will be argued that all these points can be thrashed out in Committee, but I do think it is for some of us who really know what is going on to raise our voice in this House and to let Members know the position. I do think in these difficult times, when so much is being put upon large manufacturers generally, the House should not allow this autocratic body, which already has large powers and no competition, to charge these greatly increased prices and, by so doing, cripple the trade of London.

Mr. KILEY: I hope the House will see its way to give a Second Eeading to the Bill promoted by the Metropolitan Water Board. Strange as it may seem, this is not a proposal by a public body for the purpose of increasing its income. All it is asking the House to allow it to do is to alter its method of collecting its revenue. At the present time the Board is restricted by Act of Parliament from charging more than 5 per cent, on the assessable value of the premises it supplies, but if the income is proved to be insufficient to meet its outgoings, it has power to levy a rate on the local bodies which come under its area. It has been suggested that it is not the best method o'f collecting its income to have a dual way of so doing: that it would be far better that the restriction of 5 per cent, should be removed, allow the same revenue as at present received to be collected in one way instead of two, and allow the Metropolitan Water Board to increase its rates to any amount that may be necessary for its revenue. That revenue need not be larger than it is. In fact, the Board do not anticipate being called upon to provide any amount in excess of what it is at present receiving; but what it is asking the House to do is to give it power to collect its revenue by one method instead of two as at present. That applies to the domestic supply, which is the bulk of its supply.
It is perfectly true, as the last speaker has stated, that the Board does supply a certain quantity by meter, but, after all, it is very small indeed in proportion to the total. Some users have got their water by meter at a cost of 6fd., and others have
had to pay as much as lid. It has been suggested by the Board that it is not a proper thing for a public body to charge one consumer 6½d. and another consumer 11d. It is quite true that 6½d. was given to the very largest users, and then there was a graduation to 11d. for smaller supplies, and it is being urged that it costs the Board considerably less to supply a larger consumer than it does to supply a smaller consumer by meter. That may be true to a very minute extent, but very often it works out quite the other way. In order to supply water in large bulk to a certain user you have to put down larger mains, and the cost is out of proportion to the revenue received. While it is conceded that there might possibly be some small saving, there is no justification whatever, so the Board is advised, for supplying water in one case at 6⅛d. and in another at 11d. If the users want to argue that point, it is suggested that the Committee would be the right and proper place for that to be thrashed out, because the Board does not want to increase revenue, nor does it want to charge users of water any more than what it actually costs the Board to supply. That is the principal factor. The Board is not out for profit. It does not want to make a profit; all it is out for charging is the actual cost.
There has been a suggestion that the Chairman of the Board, in some remarks which he made, led the users of water by meter to believe that the policy of the Board was that it would not give the necessary supplies, and had no desire to serve water by meter. I am not, of course, responsible for the remarks which the Chairman may make, but, as a member of the Board, I would say at once that that is not the policy of the Board. The policy of the Board is clear and definite. In no case have they ever refused, although they have the legal power to refuse, to supply more than a certain quantity of water. The Board to-day is actually supplying nearly double the quantity of water to the individual consumer that it ia under any legal obligation to supply, and that is coupled with the fact that it has never refused to supply any manufacturer with water. The Chairman did, as a matter of fact, make a statement to the effect that if there were a very big increase in the number of factories which were taking large quantities of water in the London area, it
would be in the distant future a problem of some importance. To-day that does not exist, and ithe evidence of the Board's good intention in that direction is what I have just stated, that it never refuses to supply, but is, in fact, supplying without limitation any reasonable request made, at a considerable sacrifice, and by having used up funds which are derived from the domestic provision in order to increase its plant and the mains necessary for its purpose.
In regard to the suggestion that perhaps the Board might waste its funds, I do not think I can do better than refer Members of the House to the report published about 12 months ago of a committee appointed by the Ministry of Health to investigate the Board's working and expenditure. After a very close investigation the Water Board did, in fact, receive a testimonial from that committee to the effect that the Board was well managed. Beyond making a few suggestions which are embodied in the Bill now before us, nothing was suggested. The proposals in the present Bill are practically the recommendations of that committee appointed by the Ministry of Health. Therefore, I suggest that the Government might well give a Second Reading to this Bill. As to the question of whether it is advisable to alter the arrangement as to the 6½d. to the 11d. and make one uniform Charge, that matter can be argued in Committee, and the Board will accept the decision of the Committee and will do their best to carry it out. They have, as a matter of fact, put in the Bill power to levy a rate of 2s. The only object of fixing this 2s. was that if they had fixed the amount at 11d. and it had been by any means necessary to make it 1s. the Board would have had to promote a new Bill here. In the event of the cost being less, the Board will charge less. For the Board is not out to make a profit, but only to receive a revenue to meet the outgoings. The 2s. is a matter of precaution put into the Bill to save the necessity of coming repeatedly to the House for new powers. If the 2s. be considered excessive the Board is willing to accept a lower figure, but it suggests that the Committee is the proper place for that to be thrashed out. I, therefore, invite the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.

Mr. GILBERT: I rise as a London Member to oppose the Second Reading of the Metropolitan Water Board (Charges) Bill. I think the House ought to know something of the history of the Metropolitan Water Board's undertaking as regards the water supply of London. The Metropolitan Water Board was established under a Bill passed by this House in 1902. It is composed of 66 members, who-are elected from the various local authorities in London and Greater London, which is included in the area of the watershed of London. The Board took over the old water companies and paid them £46,939,914. This is not the place now to express one's opinion or views about the amount paid, but I am one of those London Members who have always thought that the Board paid a considerably larger amount than they should for the undertakings of the old water companies. They floated a loan to pay for these undertakings. Owing to the fact that it was issued at a discount, they only got £43,000,000.
9.0 P.M.
Having come into the undertaking, and having examined the charges made by the old water companies, the Metropolitan Water Board came to this House and promoted a Bill for new charges. In that Bill they made a rate on the water consumer—who is the person I am mostly interested in, the ordinary Lofodon water consumer—of 5 per cent, on the rateable value, but included in the Bill what was called the right to make a deficiency rate on tho rates of London. That meant that if their own rate which they levied of 5 per cent, on the water consumer was not sufficient they had the right to come to the London ratepayer for any deficiency over and above the income received from the water consumer. A strange thing about the conduct of the Metropolitan Water Board is this, that only in three years have they made a profit over and above the income. These profits were £2,288 (1905–6), £26,500 (1906–7), and £933 (1907–8), respectively. Every year since then they have 'made a deficiency. I do not want to weary the House with too many figures, but may I say that in 1908–9 the deficiency was £25,279. In 1918–19 the deficiency was £530,785, and the estimated deficiency (approximately) for 1919–20 is £964,852. That is the amount of the deficiency to be paid by a rate on the general ratepayer of Lon-
don, in addition to the water-rate paid by the water consumer as a water charge.
One other point in connection with this deficiency rate, I think, the House ought to know: we have in London what is called a quinquennial valuation. The Water Board depends for its income upon the rateable value of London, and they always get the advantage, every five years, of any increased value which the quinquennial value gives to London. In 1906 the rateable value of London was £43,800,000; in 1911 it was £44,897,000; in 1916 it was £45,401,000; and last year the quinquennial valuation, operative as from 1st April of this year, was £48,702,000; so that with all the advantages of increased valuation they have still made this deficiency rate on London. What this Bill proposes to do is to double the percentage rate on the ordinary water consumer in London, who, instead of paying 5 per cent. upon his rates, will in future, if this Bill goes through without any alteration, be liable to be charged 10 per cent. on his rateable value. My hon. Friend, the Member for Whitechapel, stated that this is going to be no extra charge upon the water consumer. I venture to suggest to the House that it is going to be a very grave extra charge upon the ordinary water consumer in London. As that ordinary consumer is largely composed of small ratepayers, the person who is a small ratepayer and the occupier of a small house is going to pay a very considerable amount more for his water in the future.
I followed the argument of the hon. Member for Whitechapel, and I have listened to several deputations on this point. We were told that the ratepayers of London would not pay any more because they are now paying a 5 per cent. water rate, plus a deficiency rate. May I give the House a few figures which, I think, will prove clearly that under this Bill the ordinary water consumer is going to pay a considerably extra amount. Take the ordinary house rated at £20 yearly. To-day the occupier pays 5 per cent., or £1 a year, for water. The deficiency rate of last year was as near as possible 4d. in the £, which makes 6s. 8d. for deficiency rate, or a total water rate of £1 6s. 8d. This Bill proposes to give the Metropolitan Water Board power to increase that to £2. I say that is going to be a very excessive and monstrous charge on the small occupier and small
water consumer. You take a £30 ratepayer who pays 30s. now and a deficiency rate of 10s. brings it up to 40s., but under this Bill he will have to pay £3. A £40 ratepayer who now pays 40s. and a deficiency rate of 13s. 4d. brings it up to 53s. 4d., and under this Bill he will have to pay £4. A £50 ratepayer who pays £2 10s. now and a deficiency rate of 16s. 8d. can be charged up to £5 under this Bill. These are charges which deserve a protest from London Members. In addition to that, in this Bill they still retain the right to impose a deficiency rate. This means that you give the Water Board the right to charge 10 per cent. on rateable value for water rate, and you still give them the right of coming on the ratepayers of London in the water area to pay a deficiency rate for any amount that the Water Board may choose to assess. If you give a Second Reading to this Bill with a right to charge up to 10 per cent. and a deficiency rate that is not a measure which is going to make the Water Board act economically, in fact it invites them to extravagance, because there is no limit to the way in which they can spend their money.
I am not an admirer of the Water Board because I think it is a very extravagant and a very wasteful body. Everybody knows that until quite recently they spent a very great deal of money in building offices in Rosebery Avenue, and it is the opinion of a good many people that those offices were not necessary. One of the points which was considered by the Departmental Committee was the cost of collection. The Metropolitan Water Board in every local Government area keep up their own collectors and they have an expensive system of collecting their rate. Offers have been made to collect their rate in conjunction with the local rate, but that proposal has always been declined by the Water Board. The hon. Member for Whitechapel (Mr. Kiley) referred to the findings of the Departmental Committee. It is true that such a Committee was set up by the Ministry of Health, but it is not true, as the hon. Member said, that this Bill carries out all the recommendations of that Committee. The two main conclusions of that Committee are:
(1) We are disposed to consider that a reduction in the number of members of the Water Board would add to its efficiency.
There is no provision in this Bill which carries out that recommendation. The second recommendation is:
(2) We recommend that the Water Board should appoint and pay some person to perform the function of general manager, who will devote his whole time to the affair of the Board so as to secure co-ordination of general policy, and the fullest consideration of all questions affecting the Board and of the problems which will have to be faced in the future.
Nothing has been done to carry out those recommendations, and it is quite useless for Members of the Water Board to come here and suggest that this Bill is carrying out the recommendations of the Departmental Committee when no attempt has been made to carry out those two most important recommendations. The statement has been made that this Bill is not going to increase the income of the Water Board. In my opinion this new rate is going to increas the income of that Board very considerably. The income of this Board in 1918–19 from domestic water rates and other fixed charges was £2,232,011, and the deficiency in the same year was £783,000. If you give this Board the power to double the charge, then they can raise an extra £2,232,000 as against a deficiency of £783,000.
With reference to some of the things which the Water Board have not done, they have taken no power to charge the outside areas where they make bulk supply agreements under the old Act to increase their charges. May I give one case? On the establishment of the Board they received from Croydon a sum of £225,810 for the purchase of their undertaking within the borough, and they had to supply water at the price of 2⅛d. per 1,000 gallons for 500,000,000 gallons. This was fixed in 1904 for a period up till 1934. I suggest that we have no right to supply water in bulk to Croydon at this very cheap rate. If this charge of 10 per cent. is to be made on the London water consumer it is quite fair in a Bill of this kind to make people like Croydon, who take these supplies of water, pay an increase at the same rate as the increase to the London ratepayer. The Member for Stratford (Mr. Lyle) has referred to the deputation of London manufacturers which waited upon the Water Board to see if they could get an
agreement in regard to bulk supply. On this point, what the hon. Member has said is quite true. A representative committee of London manufacturers interviewed the Chairman of the Water Board and other members of the Board and asked them to deal with this particular grievance. I think it is quite fair to assume that when the Chairman of the Water Board replies to such a deputation that he is giving the views of the Water Board itself. I have here a shorthand note of that conference, and I will read what the Chairman of the Water Board said, because he made an astounding statement, for he said:
It was not part of the duty of the Metropolitan Water Board to supply water for trade purposes. Their duty was to carry out a great public health service, and it must not be assumed that they wanted to supply water for trade purposes at all. Their main duty was to supply water for domestic use, and the supply of water for trade purposes was a matter of indifference to the Board. He must repeat that with regard to the graduated scale this did not originate with the Board, but with the Departmental Committee, and in introducing their Bills they had merely translated into Parliamentary language the findings of that Committee, and it stated that water was not to be supplied to anyone at less than cost price.
In reply to one of the manufacturers, the chairman of the Water Board said:
The policy of the Water Board was not to encourage the supply of water for trade purposes. Manufacturers, both existing and prospective, must not look upon London as suitable for manufacturing purposes. The time would come when the Board would have to discourage supplying water for trade purposes.
Another member of the deputation asked if it was the policy of the Water Board to check the trade of London, and whether they were to understand that if the Water Board failed to bring water to the manufacturers then the manufacturers would have to go to the water, and the chairman replied:
The Board would not be prepared to agree to a sliding scale. Indeed, it would be most difficult for them to do so in the face of the express recommendations of the Departmental Committee. He would again repeat that it was the duty of the Board to provide the domestic consumers of London with a commodity which was by no means limitless, and when the supply available from the Thames watershed became exhausted they would have to go elsewhere.
Later on he said:
There was no invidious discrimination, and he thought they were supplying water
to the non-domestic consumer on very advantageous terms. As far as his information went, in no town or city in England, Scotland or Wales was water of the quality supplied by the Metropolitan Water Board supplied for trade purposes on such advantageous terms. It might be in the future that manufacturers on the Thames would be required to draw their supplies direct from the Thames and purify it themselves, and no doubt there was plenty of water available under these circumstances.
I was amazed, as a London Member, to read that the Chairman of a London authority responsible for the water supply to the enormous manufacturing interests in London should have made a statement like that to a deputation of London manufacturers. We know that London depends very largely on its manufactories. We have hundreds and thousands of them. We are the largest manufacturing city in the British Islands, and I always understood that provincial water authorities did everything they could in order to encourage the manufacturers in their districts. When you have the Chairman of the London Water Authority talking like this it is time that some of the London Members protested against the statements he made to the London manufacturers. May I mention one other point which I think proves absolutely the unreasonableness of the Metropolitan Water Board. The Thames Conservancy Bill, which is down for Second Reading to-night, asks for an extra amount to be paid it by the Water Board. When this was considered by the Thames Conservancy, as a public authority in London they were anxious not to waste public money in fighting the Bill in Parliament, and they approached the Water Board and invited it to meet them in conference on the question. Members must recollect that it has already been decided twice by Parliament that the Metropolitan Water Board should pay a certain amount to the Thames Conservancy for the water they extract from the River Thames, and Members of this House, interested in rating will appreciate the action of the Thames Conservancy in trying to obtain an agreement with the Water Board as to the extra amount to be paid. This is the letter which was sent by the Secretary to the Metropolitan Water Board to the Thames Conservancy under date 23rd September, 1920:
Your letter of the 28th July has been laid before the Law and Parliamentary Committee of the Water Board, to whom it appears that the object of the proposed con-
ference is to discuss an increase in the statutory payments made to the Conservancy by the Board. My Committee desire to advert to my letter to you of the 7th May last, stating that any proposal to increase the statutory payments would meet with the Board's determined opposition and to state that as the proposed conference would be unlikely in these circumstances to achieve any satisfactory purpose they are not in a position to accept the invitation of the Conservancy.
When the Conservancy Board decided to promote the Bill in Parliament they sent this further letter to the Metropolitan Water Board under date 17th December, 1920:
Referring to the recent correspondence which has taken place between yourself and the Secretary of the Conservators, I am desired to send herewith for your information a copy of the Thames Conservancy Bill which has been deposited by the Conservators for introduction in the ensuing Session of Parliament, and they take this opportunity of stating that, whilst the Conservancy note with regret that your Law and Parliamentary Committee do not see their way to accept the Conservators' invitation to a conference, they will still be happy to consider any further suggestion in that behalf which the Water Board might see fit to put forward.
To that letter they never received any answer. I put it, that a public authority which acts on these lines in connection with a Bill promoted by another public authority deserves to have its action carefully scrutinised by this House. I think hon. Members will see, in view of the facts I have given, that I am strongly opposed to the Metropolitan Water Board Bill, and I hope I have given the House several good reasons for opposition to that Bill. I am a London Member. The London Members have a group which meets to consider all Bills affecting London. Members who were in this House during last Session will agree with me that, in regard to the Underground Railways Bill and the Metropolitan Fares Bill, pretty effective work was done by us from a London point of view. We discussed this Bill before the group of London Members some weeks ago, and received deputations from various interests connected with these Bills, and, as a result of our conferences upstairs, we came to the conclusion that, in view of all the interests concerned and in view of the necessity for saving all public expense possible at the present time, the best thing to do would be to refer all these Bills to a Joint Committee of Parliament. If hon. Members will look at the Order Paper, they
will see that for some weeks past there has been a notice upon it, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Sir W. Bull) and myself, of a Motion to the effect that all these Bills should be sent to a Joint Committee. That proposal was agreed to, I will not say unanimously, but it was carried by a great majority of the London Members present at our conferences. Strongly as I feel against the Metropolitan Water Board Bill, I am convinced, after considering all the points I have placed before the House to-night, that the best solution of the difficulty is for all these Bills to go to a Joint Committee where the points which they raise can be fully discussed, where the promoters of the Bill can be made to state their case for the measure, and can be properly cross-examined before the Committee. Therefore, although I feel strongly that the Metropolitan Water Board Bill should be rejected on the Second Reading, I have come to the conclusion personally that if the Second Heading is carried by the House it would be better it should be agreed that all these Bills, which deal with matters very much interwoven, should be sent to a Joint Committee, and therefore I hope the House, supporting the decision of the London Members, will agree to the Motion which stands in the name of the Chairman of Ways and Means.

Major MALONE: I am not at all surprised to hear the speech just delivered. I am an old member of the Water Board, and it seems to meitwas brought in under a very unlucky star. From the very first day it came into existence it inherited the hostility of the London County Council. It was in opposition to their scheme for bringing water from Wales that the Metropolitan Water Board is established, hence the hostility of the members of the London County Council which we have had to experience ever since. I had thought that this Bill was so simple that it would pass through without any difficulty whatever. Its object is to amend the Metropolitan Water Board charges of 1907 and to enable the Board to derive from their charges for water supplied sufficient revenue to cover their expenses without having to resort to a deficiency rate. The Board's operations are not carried on for profit, therefore there is no reason why they should advocate any-
thing more than their necessary charges. This Bill will not increase the revenue of the Board, because we have complete powers at the present time to obtain full revenue from the rates, if not from the water charges. The Bill will simplify matters considerably. It will do away with the unbusinesslike method of creating a deficiency rate, and therefore with the great objection of many local authorities, who find it very difficult now to precept in proper proportion for the rates of their district. It will be a very great advantage to the local authorities. The Bill has been formed to distribute the burden equitably between the domestic consumers and those supplied by measure, the object being to secure that the consumer of water by measure will pay for the water at the cost that the Board will have to pay. That is easily ascertained, and no meter-holder may be afraid that he will be charged in excess of what it actually costs the Board to supply the water. At the present time the domestic rate is 5 per cent, on the rateable value of the house, and the water-meter is charged at 6⅛d. up to 11d. The cost of supplying 1,000 gallons of water to-day is considerably over 11d. Therefore these large consumers of water are really receiving water at the cost of the domestic consumer.
The Board was established in 1902, and it was bound in 1907 to introduce a Bill to equalise the charges throughout its area. During the passage of that Bill Amendments were introduced in this House which imposed various obligations upon the Board, reducing to less than the cost the price charged for the water in many districts. The minimum charge authorised by the Act in 1907 for domestic supply was 5 per cent. on the rateable value, premises valued at over £300 having a rebate. The non-domestic supply, as I have pointed out, was 6⅛d. for large amounts and 11d. for small consumers. There is also an obligation upon the Water Board that all water for extinguishing fires and such like shall be provided free. In the case of 100,000 gallons of water at 11d., the Act of 1907 reduced the revenue to such an extent that for the last year, 1919–1920, the deficiency rate alone amounted to £984,867.

Mr. W. THORNE: What is the cause of that?

Major MALONE: Various causes over which the Board has no control whatever.

Mr. THORNE: Your wages have not gone up, anyhow.

Major MALONE: Wages have gone up considerably, the cost of coal has gone up considerably. Everything that is used, material and otherwise, by the Board has gone up to a considerable degree. In this coming half-year the deficiency rate or the amount of the deficiency will be something like £1,250,000. Will any body of business men say that it is right to pay part of that in water rate and the other part from the local rates? That is the reason why this Bill is introduced. It simplifies the whole thing and instead of charging on a double basis we shall be able to charge the consumer in a proper way. Therefore I sincerely hope the Bill will be read a Second time, and I would like again to point out that it will not increase the cost to the ratepayers or the consumer in any way. [Hon. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] No, because we have the power to-day, assuming that our deficiency is £1,000,000, to demand that £1,000,000 from the ratepayers.

Mr. THORNE: No, the local authority.

Major MALONE: It would be a great convenience to the local finances and the local authorities. The Board considered that this was the proper thing to do. So far as the supply of water is concerned, I am confident that there must be some misunderstanding with regard to the statement of the chairman, because our chairman is a most considerate man, and I am sure, as a business man, he would not make such a statement as has been suggested. There must be some misapprehension in the minds of hon. Members.

Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: In accordance with Mr. Speaker's ruling, I wish to deal only with the second and third Orders on the Paper, although so far the Motion before the House only deals with No. 1. The Thames and the Lee Conservancy Bills propose, among other objects, to increase the payments receivable from the Metropolitan Water Board and the tolls received from those who use the rivers. In the case of the Thames Conservancy, the Metropolitan Water Board contribution is now standing at £45,000 a year and it will be aug-
mented to £112,500. In the case of the Lee Conservancy the present contribution of £8,000 will be changed to one of £20,000. I have an instruction on the Order Paper regarding both these Bills, which I have put down at the instance of the London County Council, to strike out the Clauses imposing these increased contributions. I can reassure my hon. And gallant Friend, however, by saying I think it most improbable that I shall move these instructions. The first and the best reason for which I shall not move them is that I think they will probably prove to be out of order, because, if a Bill goes to a Joint Committee, it is not in order that this House should pass a mandatory instruction. In any case, however, I should be reluctant to move such an instruction, because I realise that under present conditions it would probably—in fact, certainly—reduce both these conservancies to insolvency. But I hope the Committee will scrutinise very jealously the necessity for this greatly increased expenditure for which the Bills provide, and will see that the conservancies do not charge capital expenditure upon the ratepayers in their annual charges. Still, I hope that, if we are met in the way that I shall suggest, the Bills may get a Second Reading. The trouble is that a Private Bill Committee cannot deal with the larger grievance of the London ratepayers, because the Committee would not be able to go outside the Preamble of the Bill. The London grievance is that, whereas the up-river populations enjoy, in a far greater degree than the Metropolis, the amenities of the river, these up-river populations subscribe not one farthing to the upkeep of the river. Apart from the tolls and rates on boats and barges, the whole of the revenue for the 136 miles of navigable river under the Thames Conservancy is derived from the London ratepayers; and the question of the fairness of this contribution, and of its being widened to include a contribution from other people who profit by the amenities of the river, has never, at all events in recent years, been heard. Last year a Committee was set up under the Ministry of Transport Act—the Rates Advisory Committee—upon whose recommendation these two Conservancy Bills have been founded—

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of TRANSPORT (Mr. Neal): Not two.

Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: I beg pardon. The Thames Conservancy Bill has been founded upon it, but I think I may also say that the Lee Conservancy Bill is founded on it to this extent, that it adopts exactly the same method of taking the pre-War charge and increasing it by 150 per cent. I suspect that, if it had not been for the strong Report of the Rates Advisory Committee, we should not have found the Lee Conservancy bringing forward a Bill with an exactly corresponding provision. The, Rates Advisory Committee was only empowered to consider the question of tolls and charges, and Mr. Gore-Browne, the Chairman of the Committee, at the opening of the proceedings, informed the representatives of the Metropolitan Water Board that the question of the Board's contribution was outside the purview of the inquiry. The Metropolitan Water Board, therefore, withdrew, because they had no locus.No doubt the Chairman of the Committee was absolutely right, and was only empowered to consider the Thames Conservancy in its functions as controlling an inland navigation undertaking. Unfortunately, however, in spite of having ruled out this evidence, the Committee did express an opinion on this matter of the London contribution, saying that it would not in their view be feasible to rate localities and houses in the up-river area, which, apparently, they considered were entitled to exemption bcause they had to face expenditure for the purification of the water. It is certain that, if the Metropolitan Water Board had been heard, they would have been able conclusively to show that London is doing exactly the same, and that a colossal sum is being spent year by year by London to keep the lower reaches of the Thames free from pollution. As a matter of fact, the whole of the purification which is done in the Thames Conservancy area is done to comply with the conditions imposed by the Rivers Pollution Act of 1876, and if there were a lower standard of purity, both the navigation and the health of the river under the control of the Thames Conservancy would undoubtedly suffer.
All that I want to do is to show that there is a prim00E2 facie case for hearing the London claim that a wider basis should be fixed for this rating contribution. The London grievance is not against the toll payer but against the local
authorities, who, so far, have escaped any contributions whatever. I will not deal in detail with the Lee Bill, but will only deal briefly with the Thames Bill, because the considerations affecting both Bills are very much the same. London is the only rating authority which contributes to the Thames Conservancy. That system has grown up gradually, and is, no doubt, due to the fact that the Metropolitan Water Board has inherited the undertakings of companies trading for profit, whereas Oxford, Reading, and other riverside communities have never had anything to do with these private undertakings, and have not inherited these burdens which were quite rightly placed on that form of private enterprise. The result is that none of the up-river communities like Reading, Oxford, Kingston or Windsor pay anything towards the Thames Conservancy. The towns in the Thames Conservancy area have a population of 350,000 and an assessable value of £2,750,000. The Thames runs also through seven counties, and those counties pay nothing either, although they have representatives on the Thames Conservancy far outnumbering the representatives of the London County Council, which has to find the money. Although the Metropolitan area finds five-sixths of the money, it has only a small proportion of the control. These up-river areas have a rateable value of £24,000,000; that is to say, the produce of a 1d. rate would be £100,000 a year. London is to pay, under this Bill, a ½d. rate to produce this £112,000. If the up-river area paid a ½d. rate, that would bring in £50,000, and would mean a very great alleviation of the burden borne by London. It is obvious that it is unfair that London should have to pay a ½d. rate for the upkeep of tow-paths, weirs, and locks up-river for the amenities enjoyed by the populations there and for the conservation of water power for the mills up-river, to which the riparian population do not contribute a farthing. The London claim is that there should be an inquiry into the whole question, and I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport whether he can set up, in conjunction with the Ministry of Health, an Inter-departmental Committee to consider the whole question of contribution towards the Thames and Lee Conservancies on the part of rating authorities. If the hon. Gentleman could
promise to set up such an inquiry I should be very glad to see these two Bills get their Second Reading and go to a Committee, though I should still hope that the Private Bill Committee would put a time limit in both Bills, so that after a reasonable period Parliament should have an opportunity of giving effect to the recommendations of the Inter-Departmental Committee inquiring into the whole case. If the hon. Gentleman will give such an undertaking he will very much shorten discussion and ease the passage of these measures, and I think the House need have no fear that if such an Inter-Departmental Committee were set up the interests of all ratepayers, not only in London, but throughout the whole Thames area would not be fairly considered to enable the burden to be redistributed so that all those who benefit by the amenities of the Thames can pay a fair part.

Sir H. NIELD: I have been puzzled for days past to understand in what connection the ecclesiastical and rural district of Bury St. Edmunds could be so very interested in a matter concerning the Rivers Lea and Thames. Now the murder is out. The hon. and gallant Gentleman represents the views of the London County Council, for which apparently he has great admiration. I do not envy him his admiration, but I see that he is obsessed with the view which has been carefully inculcated into members of the London County Council sitting in this House, and that is that London should not continue to have all the good things, that is to say, the rateable obligations, but should share them with the towns up the river. There are two hon. and learned Friends of mine in this House who will make a very good case on behalf of the Thames, and will probably show conclusively that Oxford or Windsor or Reading should not be penalised for impounding water in the main for the benefit of London. Therefore, though to a certain extent I support the demands of the Thames Conservancy, my task tonight, like the triangular dual in "Midshipman Easy," is, while trying not to hit the Thames, to hit the waterworks, who are trying to raise their tolls to London consumers and yet keep their deficiency rate, while at the same time they are refusing to pay for the commodity they are selling. A more dishonest proposal was never made.
They come forward with all the effrontery in the world and say, "Give us a right to charge 10 per cent. in place of 5 per cent. and keep the deficiency rate which will insure us against any deficiency." The hon. Member (Mr. Kiley) and the hon. Member (Major Malone) said, in plaintive tones: "We are only out to supply water at cost price." I wonder how much has been added to the cost of the water as bought from the Thames and Lea Conservancies by reason of the inordinate and excessive salaries and war bonuses which have been paid to the staff and the higher officials, and the wasteful way in which that Water Board has administered its undertaking. If you were to take the amount of paper and printing that Board has incurred in going to every local authority, not merely in the county of London, but in the water-bearing areas of London, and circulating and stirring up and putting into their minds statements which are facts and some which are not in order, that they might come to the House and present an array of talent and strength which was going to overawe both the Thames Conservancy and myself as being the solitary representative of the Lea. But it has done nothing of the sort. It has only convinced me that the Water Board has no scruple. It does not mind what methods it adopts if it can get its aim, and as they treated the Thames when they suggested that the time had come to revise the question of water payments, so they have treated the Conservancy of which I am the vice-chairman.
This is not a question of a new principle. It might be well said that this House might be invited to reject the Bill if it contained a perfectly new principle, but the principle of making the water consumer pay for the water extracted from the Lea commenced in 1739. The New River was in the reign of James I. brought from near Hertford to London. The very wells of the New River have been for centuries the national supplies of the River Lea. In 1739, they paid to the New River Company an annual sum of £350. Again, in 1835, Parliament authorised a further contribution from the New River Company and also one from the East London Water Company. In 1852, further legislative sanction was given to the payment for taking water, and then again in 1855, in 1856 and in 1901.
In 1900, Parliament reaffirmed the right of the Conservancy to have money paid for the water extracted. The number of million gallons which are taken out of the Lea and supplied to the Metropolitan Water Board for the sum of £8,000 is relatively largely in excess of the money which is paid already to the Thames Conservancy for the water taken from that body. How can anyone say that no service is performed for this payment? We have to maintain the navigation on the river. In the case of the Lee it was a winding river in parts, and by an Act of George III a Board of Trustees were set up and the river had to be carried in canal and to be straightened in several places so as to make it fit for navigation. By reason of these works certain very heavy annual charges had to be maintained in order to keep the embankments both of the natural river and the artificial river secure and to preserve and impound the water for Londoners to drink, and the suggestion now is that you are to go on expending money to preserve and impound, apart from the purification of that water, which is made a marketable commodity and which is sold at a considerable price to water drinkers without any regard to the increased cost which you will have to pay for commodities and for labour at the present time.
Why is it that the Lee Conservancies are obliged to come to Parliament to ask that these contributions may be increased? Let me give a few of the items. As compared with the year ending March, 1914, the cost of works and maintenance, labour and materials only, had risen from £3,840 to £12,400. I turn to wages of collectors and lock keepers and others who are engaged at a weekly wage in the offices of the Conservancy, and they have risen from £2,501 to an estimate of £5,000. We have the inestimable privilege of going through the Borough of Poplar, which has earned world-wide notoriety in connection with rates. We have been too poor to follow the extravagant precedent set by the Metropolitan Water Board of adopting the Civil Service higher officers' bonus scheme. We have not been able to give the higher officers what has been demanded from us and wrung from us by those connected with all-powerful trade societies. We have been obliged by reason of that continual diminution in our
income to let our works get into arrear, and we have had difficulties in repairing and renewing lock gates and all the necessary buildings and plant which belong to a navigation such as this. Moreover, in order to preserve for London the utmost supply of water that can be done, some years ago we took over from a very well-known former Member of this House, Sir Walter Gilbey, a derelict river, the River Stort, which belonged to him, and which had passed into "private hands? why, I do not know ? under an Act of the early reign of George III., for it was constructed and Trustees appointed. The River Stort is a navigable river from its mouth at Ryehouse up to Bishop Stortford, and it is a very valuable river, because it travels through country which is capable of great things in the immediate future. We took over that river as a derelict river, and we have had to rebuild the locks and to dredge it, because it had almost silted up in some places. We have had to incur large costs, but we have succeeded in carrying forward our works and re-creating the river up to within a few miles of Bishop Stortford. I ask any hon. Member who is criticising the Conservancy for their present proposals in order to pay these charges to remember that they are not out for mere profit-making. They pay 300BD per cent. on one stock and 4 per cent. on another. That is the only income that is distributed to anybody. Therefore it cannot be said that they are a profit-making concern, and that the price for water for which they are asking is to go into the pockets of capitalists or private individuals. It certainly goes to that limited amount in that very modest rate of interest for the purpose of recouping those who have made an outlay in the shape of loans in years past.
It is all-important that we should preserve every gallon of water we can for the water drinkers of London. I remember the water famine of 30 years ago. That was a time which created the greatest anxiety, and it was one of the reasons why the Water Board came into existence, in order that they might be the owners of the whole of the waterway, so that in the event of a water famine in one district they would have supreme control and would be able to deal with the matter. We have been endeavouring to preserve to the best of our ability
every gallon of water by impounding it and by keeping the river from overflowing its banks. If these works were not carried out, not only would the river become derelict in one sense, but in times of excessive rainfall the floods would be so terrific that the whole countryside would be ruined. As my right hon. Friend's predecessor at the Ministry of Health knows, we have had recent investigations carried out at the expense of the joint counties through whose area the river runs, together with the borough of West Ham and the City of London, who have subscribed a fund for the purpose of surveying the whole valley in order to prevent the disastrous effects that have occurred even in recent years, but we have found that the cost is so terrific that it is impossible in the present state of the financial market to undertake the necessary works.
10.0 P.M.
In the meantime we are asking for an income which is barely sufficient, even if the House gives us everything that we ask for, to enable us to carry out the work necessary for the safety of the localities from flooding and for the preservation of the water for London. I do earnestly ask that the House should give a Second Reading to this Bill. A point has been made by the hon. Member for Limehouse (Sir W. Pearce) with respect to the proposed tolls. My hon. Friend is a trader and he is a trader on this very river. Does he know that in the case of every canal or waterway which during the War has been liable under emergency statutes to be controlled that the mere application of an order of the Ministry of Transport has enabled them to raise their tolls 150 per cent. Certainly they generally allowed 150 per cent. by Departmental order, and we have felt the absolute necessity of making the same ratio of increase in the case of tolls as in the case of water contribution in order that the traders should not say that we are treating them unfairly if we do not ask from the Water Board the same ratio increase that we are asking from the traders.

Sir W. PEARCE: If the power to treble the dues is a precaution without the intention to make them immediately operative, that is a different proposition.

Sir H. NIELD: My hon. Friend must give myself and my colleagues sufficient credit for the possession of such reason-
able business faculties as to prevent ourselves from cutting our own throats and depriving ourselves of traffic which otherwise would come. We are asking for power to charge tolls up to 150 per cent., but we are not likely to seek to enforce the power to our own loss. It is the fact that until the last two years, until we found that we were obliged to do it for revenue purposes, we have never charged the maximum toll under certain schedules which gave us the power to do it. That shows the reasonableness of our conduct in the past, and though we are bound to ask for this maximum now, it is not likely that we are going to kill the goose which lays the golden egg by charging an excessive amount of toll simply because we were entitled to do so.

Sir W. PEARCE: Do the Lee Conservancy intend to at once increase the dues on the Limehouse Cut three times, as the Bill gives them power? If so, they might lose revenue rather than gain.

Sir H. NIELD: It is a very complicated question. The Limehouse Cut was artificially cut many years ago to facilitate the entrance of vessels coming down the Thames from London. The entrance to the River Lee, and of other waterways down there, is very tortuous. It often gets silted up, and the result was that the Limehouse Cut was made and a special toll was placed upon it, because of the large expenditure which was incurred for the benefit of the traders of London. The Bow Creek, on the other hand, which is the other arm, and much more convenient for traders coming up the Thames in lighters and tugs, has hitherto been free of toll. I think that is because of some very ancient charters, probably accounted for by the presence in the old days of several abbeys or monastic establishments in the neighbourhood. Although the traders and the hon. Member (Sir W. Pearce) are complaining that it is now proposed to charge tolls in respect of the Bow Creek, and that they have bought their land upon the footing that they had a free river, they must remember that times have changed, that circumstances change, that places change, and that the Lee Conservancy has been for years expending considerable sums of money in dredging the Bow river voluntarily and making it navigable for the convenience of the people who have wharves on it. The Bill assumes this must add to their
revenue. They say it is only fair that the traders upon the Bow river should pay inasmuch as those which come through the Limehouse Cut pay an additional sum towards the expense of maintaining that river, because that expenditure is directly for their benefit. I am sure my hon. Friend agrees we had not the least intention of putting a burden upon traders they are not able to bear. I am sure my hon. Friend will find that those traders who have been so alarmed, especially that body of traders who have petitioned, and who are headed by the Brimsdown Lead Company, need not necessarily feel so alarmed. A more fabulous document than the statement which they have sent out to all the Members of this House I have never seen. I have a recollection of reading Baron Munchausen in my youth, but I venture to think that this is the nearest approach, to his adventures I have ever read in modern times. I would ask the representatives of this company wherever they may be to study the art of moderation in expression and to refrain in future from introducing into a twentieth century document statements which belong to the imaginative literature of the East.

The MINISTER of HEALTH (Sir A. Mond): During the discussion which has taken place, it has become more and more obvious that the main fact which led to the introduction of the Bill has not been challenged, namely, that the cost of raising water and distributing water has gone up like that of all other commodities. The position was reached that there was a deficiency of no less than £964,000 in the financial year in the Metropolitan Water Board on their annual working. That was a serious matter, and it was obvious that some steps had to be taken. It is well known to. Members of the House that the deficiency had to be met by a guarantee from the London County Council. That was a most unsatisfactory state of things, and it could not have been allowed to continue. The result of it was that my predecessor established a very strong Committee to inquire into the finances and methods of working of the Water Board. You will agree with me that it was a very competent Committee when I tell you the names: Sir Horace Monro, Sir F. T. Willis, Mr. E. A. Lees, Sir
Henry Thornton, and Sir Gilbert Garnsey. That very strong Committee inquired into this whole matter, and after a very careful and lengthened investigation issued the Report which has been referred to several times to-night. It came to the conclusion that the charge to the consumer must be fixed at such a point that the revenue estimated to be derived therefrom would, when the present deficeicny was cleared off, be sufficient to meet the expenditure of the Board.

Mr. LYLE: Did that Departmental Committee call any evidence from consumers of water in inquiring into these terms?

Sir A. MOND: I am not quite sure. They went into the whole question. What they were required to do was to meet the immediate deficit, and also to inquire into the question of management, but I am not sure if they called any evidence from consumers.

Mr. LYLE: An ex-parte inquiry.

Sir A. MOND: Ex parte, perhaps, but anyone knows that if you want to reestablish the finances of a concern you must raise your rates according to deficiency, and the fact that users complain of the charges being too high may be very interesting, but it does not help to meet the financial deficit.

Mr. LYLE: And the question of extravagance?

Sir A. MOND: Regarding the question of extravagance, the Committee went very fully into that, and their report states that before the inquiry took place there had been some kind of vague suggestion of mismanagement on the part of the Board, but they had given the fullest opportunity to witnesses to criticise the administration of the Board, and they were able to say that no serious charges of mismanagement had been sustained. In fact, the impression which the Committee derived from all the evidence was that this great undertaking had been worked satisfactorily. That was a very high testimonial from such a competent body, and the Committee came to the conclusion which I have just stated, and it was on that conclusion the various charges in the Bill have been framed. I may say this, that we are discussing today the question of whether the Bill is to
have a Second Reading or not. It is for the Joint Committee to argue in greater detail the very important points that have been raised. It is obvious, as I have said, that to meet the deficit the rates must be raised substantially. That can only be done by legislation, and therefore it is only rational and logical that this House should give the Bill a Second Reading, and then refer it to a Joint Committee, while the various interests concerned will receive that fair and impartial hearing which Committees always give to these matters, and where the whole subject can be carefully investigated.

Mr. H. GREGORY: The position is a very peculiar one. The hon. Member who proposed a Motion that the Second Reading to be taken on this day six months, so far as I can gather, adduced no reason whatever in favour of this Motion, and nobody who has spoken since has anything against the Second Reading. Most of the Members have spoke strongly in favour, and for very good reasons. There can be no question that the preservation of the River Thames is the essential. No one doubts that the Conservancy have properly done their work of preserving the river, and there has never been any suggestion that they have acted extravagantly or improperly in their work. Their source' of income is statutory and of two kinds—tolls on merchandise and pleasure boats, and a contribution from the Metropolitan Water Board. In 1920 their income from those two sources was £62,000. Owing to the rise in the cost of materials and wages, and other expenses connected with the great War, the expenditure in 1920 was expected to be at least £130,000, leaving a deficit of £68,000, and in order to carry on their work and keep the Thames in order, so that the water might be drawn by the Metropolitan Water Board as pure as possible at the different pumping stations, they had to make provision for the expenditure of this £130,000. In order to do that they appealed to the Ministry of Transport to increase, their tolls, and after inquiry before the Rates Advisory Committee permission was granted by which they were enabled to raise a further income of from £15,000 to £17,000. To carry on their work last year they had to borrow from their bankers, and this year they will be in a worse position, because instead of spending £130,000 they will have to expend £150,000.
In those circumstances the money must be found to produce this revenue for them in some form or another. Under the Statutes now existing the only source to which they can go is the Metropolitan Water Board, and they come to this House with a Bill in which they ask that the contribution of the Metropolitan Water Board shall be increased from £45,000 to £110,000 to produce this money that is absolutely necessary in order that they may preserve the Thames from year to year. The objection is suggested, I understand, though it has not been raised in the House to-night, that it is unfair that that charge should be made on the Metropolitan Water Board—£110,000 for the right to draw off from the Thames 300,000,000 gallons of water a day in respect of which, I understand from the figures given to-night, the Metropolitan Water Board obtain a revenue of from £3,000,000 to £4,000,000. It is not necessary to enter into those details. Part of the duty, perhaps the chief duty, of the Conservators is to keep the River Thames as pure as possible. They provide against the pollution of the Thames over an area of 3,600 square miles, and the whole of the money is spent by them on purifying the water that flows into the Thames for the benefit of the Metropolitan Water Board. It may be that the Conservators are asking for too much, but that can be dealt with in Committee upstairs. But on the broad question in the case additional revenue has to be found and that the Metropolitan Water Board should find some portion of that there can be no question. On the question raised by the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Lieut.-Colonel Guinness), there may be good grounds for much that he urges. I think it would be to the advantage of the Conservancy if the inquiry suggested were held, because the broader the area from which they could obtain their revenue the better for them. No reasons have been given why the Thames Conservancy Bill should not be read a Second time. In the event of the Bill being postponed for another year the conservators would be in a very serious position with regard to funds, and if for only a year the Thames were neglected and the pollution of the water was not provided against, it would be a very sad thing for the inhabitants of London and much worse for the consumers of water in the Metropolis.

Mr. NEAL: It may be for the convenience of the House if I say a few words as to the Bills promoted by the Thames Conservancy Board and the Lea Conservancy Board. As to one matter mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Limehouse (Sir W. Pearce), the explanation is this: The Thames Conservancy Board, availing itself of the Ministry of Transport, applied to my right hon. Friend the Minister to be controlled for the purpose of increasing their charges. My right hon. Friend accepted that responsibility, and in pursuance of the Statute referred the question to the Rates Advisory Committee, which is created by the Statute and presided over by Mr. Gore-Browne, K.C. It is true that the Rates Advisory Committee did not inquire into the one matter mentioned by my hon. Friend, but the report shows that, after three days' hearing, they did advise that the tolls and charges should be increased, and that that would be futile unless at the same time some steps were taken to increase the contribution from the Metropolitan Water Board. They therefore advised that an application be made to Parliament for statutory powers to increase those charges. The inquiry which my hon. Friend desires can with great convenience be made by a Joint Committee of both Houses if this House assents to the Motion which stands in the name of the Chairman of Ways and Means. The Lee Conservancy Bill has not been under the consideration of the Ministry of Transport in the same way, but it will be the duty of my right hon. Friend to make his report to any Parliamentary Committee which is established, and it may assist the House in coming to a conclusion to give a Second Reading to these Bills if I indicate in a sentence or two the lines upon which my right hon. Friend proposes to report. In the first place, the present financial difficulty of statutory bodies is created by present high costs, and it is very much to be hoped and, I think, to be expected, that these costs will decline, and that the necessity for high charges will not be permanent. My right hon. Friend therefore proposes to report for the consideration of any Committee that deals with this matter, that these Bills should have a time limit fixed in them with reference to the extended charges which are fixed by them. Hon. Members who have made
themselves familiar with these two Bills may have noticed that by Clause 10 of the Thames Conservancy Bill they propose that the Conservancy itself should have the right to apply to the Minister of Transport for a revision of charges. The Government think that Clause is by no means in a convenient form. Any revision of charges ought not to be simply on the initiative of the Conservancy, but should equally be possible on the initiative of any other persons who are directly interested and affected in the matter, and a report to that effect will be presented to the Committee.
Then the hon. and gallant Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Lieut. - Colonel Guinness) suggested that there ought to be some broader and wider inquiry as to the basis upon which the revenue for this Conservancy Board should be raised. With that the Committee, which has advised the Minister of Transport, is in agreement, and they suggest that there have been material changes in conditions and that it might be quite right now to revise the method of obtaining its revenue and consider points as to whether local authorities, through whose territory the river passes, might properly be asked to make some contribution. There are other matters of that description. I do not want in the smallest degree to attempt to prejudge these matters, but I am authorised to say, on behalf of my right hon. Friends the Ministers of Transport and Health, that when these Bills do receive Second Reading it is their in tention to set up an Inter-departmental Committee to take the broader question into consideration at an early date, and that report would be useful to Parliament, we hope, at any time when it became right to revise the charges in the light of the time limit which we venture to hope will ultimately find its place in this Bill. I hope that meets the views of my hon. and gallant Friend. These increases of statutory charges have now received the consideration of the House in quite a number of cases, with tramways, canals, tube railways, and other undertakings, and the revisions which have been made by the Ministry of Transport after full and due inquiry have, I think, received general satisfaction, and have, in fact, saved an enormous amount of public money in Parliamentary Bill expenditure. It is in the hope that a similar procedure may
ultimately find its way into these Bills that I ask the House to give them a Second Reading. Just one word of reservation. What I have said just now about a Joint Departmental Committee refers to the Thames Conservancy Bill. I am not quite sure whether it will be found possible to extend it to the Lee Conservancy Bill, over which the Minister of Transport has no direct jurisdiction at this moment; but if the inquiry into the one authority took place, it would certainly be of assistance in dealing with the other; and if it should be found possible and wise to include both authorities in the same inquiry by the same Committee, that course will also be adopted.

Sir H. NIELD: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the Lee has no such areas or towns as the Thames has.

Major WHELER: I have to record an objection by the Kent County Council. We have heard the London Members on various points and the Metropolitan Water Board, and I am asked by the Kent County Council to say that they object very strongly to Clause 4 in the Thames Conservancy Bill and a similar Clause in the Lee Conservancy Bill. Both Clauses add a large sum to the charges already put on, and the Kent County Council, who have an area concerned in the London Water Board, object very strongly to the proposals.

Sir W. DAVISON: On a point of Order. I should like to have your ruling regarding the statement made by the hon. Gentleman with regard to this Departmental Committee. The objection of London largely is that Windsor, Oxford, and Reading, for example, pay nothing towards the user of the water which they have from the Thames. It is now suggested that this Departmental Committee should be set up to inquire into the whole method of rating. I should like to ask whether it would be open to the Committee, if we give this Bill a Second Reading, to impose rates, for example, on Oxford, Reading, and Windsor? Will they have a locus standito be heard, and can any rates be imposed on those areas if we now give the Bill a Second Reading?

Mr. SPEAKER: Without study, I cannot very well say, but I should think that they would not comply with the Standing Orders.

Mr. NEAL: On a point of Order. The Departmental Committee, I suggest with respect, has nothing to do with either of the Bills before the House. The Bills before the House will be committed either to a Committee of this House or a Joint Committee of both Houses. The Committee, which I have undertaken on behalf of the Government shall be set up, is one to operate after these Bills become law.

Mr. SPEAKER: I did not understand the question referred to the Departmental Committee. So far as the Joint Committee is concerned, it could not impose charges on the places mentioned, unless notice had been given.

The CHAIRMAN of WAYS and MEANS (Mr. Whitley): I am rising a little earlier than I intended, because I understand the Prime Minister desires to make a statement on the Adjournment to-night, and the House will, I am sure, be greatly interested to hear what that may be. I have on the Paper a Motion to refer these three Bills to a Joint Committee of the two Houses. I explained a week or two ago that I had obtained the assent of all the hon. Members interested in the Bill whom I could gather together to that course, so that I need not explain it any further. There is only one point in the Debate to which I should give some answer, and that was the contention of the hon. Member for Limehouse (Sir W. Pearce) that these Bills could all be referred together, and a Select Committee set up to inquire into the subject. It does seem to me that a Joint Committee of the two Houses is a far more effective tribunal. In the first place, you are not discussing something in the air. You are discussing concrete proposals. Every party can be heard, themselves or through Counsel. The necessary witnesses, technical or otherwise, can be heard, and I can conceive no better tribunal for dealing with a matter of this kind than a Joint Committee. A Select Committee would be comparatively quite ineffective, and I therefore hope the House will support the course I suggest.
I make an appeal to the House to grant now a Second Reading to these Bills. May I once again say that in regard to a private Bill that the Second Reading is not the same as in respect to a public Bill. In the case of a private Bill it means sending it to Committee, and the duty of that Committee is to find the preamble proved or not proved. That is
really the effective Second Reading stage which can only be taken after the parties have been heard. One thing further, in the case of any petitioner shut out by the procedure that I suggest, I propose to follow up my Motion to-day by another Motion which will enable any petitioner who was reserving his rights to come in before the Joint Committee has started to do its work, and this will make it quite certain that no interested party with a proper claim will be without a hearing before the tribunal.

Sir W. PEARCE: In view of the statements made by the various speakers on the Government Benches and my right hon. Friend who has just spoken, I do not propose to trouble the House, and I ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question, "That the Bill be now read a Second time, put and agreed to.

Bill read a Second time, and committed.

Thames Conservancy Bill. (By Order), Read a Second time, and committed.

Lee Conservancy Bill. (By Order.) Read a Second time, and committed.

Resolved, "That it is expedient that the Metropolitan Water Board (Charges) Bill, the Thames Conservancy Bill, and the Lee Conservancy Bill be committed to a Joint Committee of Lords and Commons."

Ordered, "That a Message be sent to the Lords to communicate this Resolution and to desire their concurrence."—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]

Metropolitan Water Board (Various Powers) Bill (by Order),

Read a Second time, and committed.

Orders of the Day — POLICE PENSIONS [RATES AND CONDITIONS].

Resolution reported,
That it is expedient to make provision for the payment, out of moneys provided by Parliament, of any sums payable to the Commissioner and Assistant-Commissioners of Police of the Metropolis, and to His Majesty's Inspectors of Constabulary, under
any Act of the present Session, to consolidate and amend the Law respecting the retirement, pensions, allowances, and gratuities of members of police forces in Great Britain and their widows and children.

Resolution agreed to.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

COAL INDUSTRY.

WAGES DISPUTE.

CONFERENCE PROPOSALS.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Lord E. Talbot.]

The PRIME MINISTER: I was not present when the last few speeches in the discussion took place, and I did not hear the speeches of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Henderson) and the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Thomas). I understand, however, that they made certain suggestions and I understand the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Henderson) was made after consultation with representatives of the miners. I am not sure whether the same observation applies to my right hon. Friend (Mr. Thomas). I have been trying to get the actual words that were used, and when there has been so much misunderstanding about words, a good deal depends upon the actual phrases used. Unfortunately, I have been unable to secure anything like a transcript of the actual phrases, but perhaps I shall be corrected if this is an inaccurate summary of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Thomas). His suggestion was that the Government should summon a conference of both miners and owners to consider first the question of pumping, and that that question should be disposed of before any other question was entered upon. That was, I understand, the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby. My right hon. Friend the Member for Miles Platting (Mr. Clynes) used certain words in the course of his speech which conveyed that impression. As far as the Government are concerned, the only position we have taken is that the question of pumping and of the safety
of the mines must be disposed of before we can enter upon negotiations on questions which must necessarily occupy a very considerable time. If, however, there is a disposition to accept the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby, and to have a discussion on the question of pumping first and dispose of it before any other question is entered upon, we certainly should have no objection to taking part in a conference upon that subject.
The action we took this morning indicated that that was a question we were willing to enter upon a discussion of at any time, and we should certainly take any step that was necessary for the purpose of summoning the parties together to discuss that question, provided that it was clear, in the words of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby, that that would be the first question, and that that question would be disposed of before any other question was entered upon. We still think that the course of procedure which was adopted this morning was the best, and that it would be far better that this question should be discussed separately, in the first place with the representatives of the miners, and afterwards with the representatives of the coalowners, which is the old procedure always adopted in the case of stoppages in the mines. The meetings of coalowners and of miners' representatives when they come together are very large and unwieldy, and my right hon. Friend knows perfectly well that we have never been able to secure an arrangement by which a small body will be accepted as representing the miners, and a similar small body as representing the owners, which is the only effective body for the purpose of negotiating details. When you have a meeting of miners and mineowners, it is usually a meeting of 75 persons—an obviously impossible body for the purposes of discussing a practical proposition. We certainly will not stand in the way of summoning a conference of that kind for the purpose of' discussing this question if it were agreed that it would be the first question to be discussed and disposed of before we enter upon any other proceedings. If that is the suggestion that is put forward, the Government are prepared to take any steps necessary for the purpose of summoning the conference.

Mr. HENDERSON: I regret that it was not possible for the Prime Minister to give a little notice that he was going to make an important statement based upon the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby (Mr. Thomas). Unfortunately, my right hon. Friend was not very well and went home early. One can quite understand the anxiety through which he is passing, but had I had a little notice I should have made an effort and perhaps succeeded in bringing him back to the House, in view of the important statement that was to be made. In face of these facts, I think it would be inadvisable for me to say more than I said earlier in the Debate. I then said I had been in consultation with the officials of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain and that they took up the position to-day that they took up on Wednesday, that they were quite prepared to go into an open conference without conditions on either side, and I on my own responsibility ventured to suggest that that was an entirely different thing to raise the highly important question of the safety men when once the conference was open to making it a preliminary to the securing of the conference. That statement was made with the knowledge of the officials of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain. Beyond that I do not go, I cannot go, at this moment, and therefore I think, in view of the momentous character of the statement and the seriousness of the position in the country, the only safe line to follow would be for the Prime Minister to put the statement he has now made before the House into a letter to the officials, and give them an opportunity of considering it to-morrow morning and of taking the responsibility, on behalf of their members, of either accepting it, so that the conference may be immediately organised, or of refusing it.
I think the Prime Minister will see that not having had any notice and not having had an opportunity even of conferring, since the afternoon, with the Miners' Federation officials, it would be quite impossible for me to make any more useful suggestion than the one I have just put forward.

Question, "That this House do now adjourn," put, and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at Ten Minutes before Eleven o'clock.